


Deep Water

by cfcureton



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), olicity - Fandom
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Human Trafficking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-05-29 21:17:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 30,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15081917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cfcureton/pseuds/cfcureton
Summary: A Season 7 Speculation fic.





	1. Chapter 1

October, 2018

Felicity pushed a strand of nut brown hair behind her ear and breathed a sigh of relief; the last of the classroom inventories was complete with one whole day left in the week. It appeared that she would be able to volunteer at William’s—scratch that—Tyler’s 6th grade Science Fair after all.

The FBI had been only too happy to turn their relocation process over to ARGUS when Lyla volunteered to handle the details. It had been a genius move on her part to find Felicity a job in the same Central City school her stepson would be attending; their assigned security agent, Bill, had been posing as a custodian since the beginning of the school year, and if the principal had noticed the man spending most of his time around the Technology Specialist’s office, she hadn’t said anything. 

The steady work that had kept her mind blissfully blank all day was now completed, and the dull ache for Oliver that accompanied every undistracted waking moment crept back into her heart. Tomorrow would mark five months to the day since Felicity had last seen her husband in the flesh, standing outside the Star City Police Department and telling the world via television camera that he was the Green Arrow. 

She had spoken to him after that day exactly twice: Once just before he was processed, when he’d played his last card with Agent Watson to get one final phone call. He said he wanted to apologize for not letting her in on the plan, and for not parting from her with a kiss. He’d regret it forever, he told her. 

The second time came about a month into his incarceration and was initiated by the doctor in the infirmary. After the doc had briefed her on Oliver’s extensive list of injuries he had sneaked the phone to her groggy and mumbling husband. He’d assured her through a mouthful of gauze and sutures that he was fine, but then he’d rambled a bit and destroyed his credibility. 

Since then she had heard nothing and neither had Lyla, though her friend speculated he had been moved someplace a little more secure and—hopefully—safe. Wherever he was, she couldn’t find him on any prison security cams; she hacked in and checked them every night. It had become part of her daily routine, right after changing into her pjs and before setting her alarm. 

She was just clocking out for the day using her work-issued laptop when her phone chimed. Felicity flipped it over to check as she stood and grabbed her sweater.

STILL ON FOR TONIGHT? ;)

Felicity grinned at the winky face and let her thumbs fly over the keypad in reply.

ABSOLUTELY. SEE YOU SOON.

Her fingers hovered briefly over the heart emoji before she added it to the end of her text and walked away to collect her kid.

—————————————————————

The man was alluring, that much was certain; even sitting idle at a rooftop cafe in tan trousers and a white button down shirt. The sun oozing toward the horizon in its last act of the day only served to enhance his attractiveness. 

All evidence to the contrary, he was not idle; he was a man who studied, and calculated. He did not move a second before he had to, and would not hesitate to alter his plans if he caught even a whiff of trouble.

He had learned long ago that there was always another way.

A server paused at the man’s shoulder to refill his whiskey glass, but he dropped a hand to cover the top in discouragement, sending the employee away with a tilt of his head. He had nursed this drink for over an hour and planned on seeing it through. The target wouldn’t need to be eliminated until the morning; there was plenty of time to deal with both.

His allure was obvious. 

The lethal he kept to himself.

 

July, 2018

He was still partially blind in one eye, a condition the doc quietly assured him would most likely reverse itself. With time.

He’d thought about joking that he had plenty of THAT at least, but he knew it would hurt too much to smile.

And neither of them would believe it anyway. 

They collected him an hour earlier than usual, a difference he recognized even without the help of a clock; they always paraded him in full shackles, wrists and ankles. He’d already tested his balance and agility in this getup as best he could and had come to the conclusion that resistance was futile. Wasn’t that a Felicity phrase? It was probably from a tv show, knowing her. 

He kept his eyes on his feet as they half shuffled, half dragged him past the whistles and cat calls of his fellow Lifers, some of whom had gifted him with his latest round of souvenirs. Including the eye. The fact that none of them were dead was due solely to his love for his family, and the small bit of hope he had left that his good behavior would make any kind of difference to the length of his sentence.

He had expected another session with the warden; the man was an avid Bible thumper and a bully, the two qualifications that probably got him the job in the first place. He had learned quickly to keep his eyes on the ground as they steered him to a chair; cowards didn’t like it if you looked them in the eye, especially if you refused to be the one who blinked first.

“Mr Queen.”

Well this was new. His head lifted in surprise at the familiar female voice. They studied each other in mutual dislike before he finally decided to answer.

“Come to gloat?”

That voice; the Green Arrow voice that might now be permanent, thanks to his last go round in the yard. The jury was still out on whether the perpetual growl had improved his street cred.

Samanda Watson smirked in that way that made him think maybe nothing had ever truly made this woman happy. 

“I have a proposition for you.”

He had a real smile for her then, a lift of the corners of his mouth; he couldn’t help it.

“Sorry to disappoint. I’m married.”

The smirk became a scowl with no actual change in her expression, which was impressive. She shook her head once in disgust.

“Why did I waste my time.”

Oliver suddenly regretted the sass; this woman was still probably his last best hope. He shifted forward in his chair with a soft clank, worked his face into a mask of contrition, and waited. She tipped her head to acknowledge his acquiescence before speaking.

“You want out of here before the Second Coming? Then listen up.” Watson leaned forward to steeple the fingers of each hand on the Warden’s desk like she owned the place. “A man of your...particular talents could be very useful at the moment.”

Oliver studied her for a beat. “To you?”

“To your country, Mr Queen.”


	2. Chapter 2

October 2018

Mombasa. Trinidad. Amsterdam. Singapore. The locations were as varied as his identities, and just as foreign. He traveled light, spoke little, collected no souvenirs. 

He memorized his covers easily, slipped into each new character as he boarded the plane, kept hold of it even alone in his hotel room. The arrangements were made on his behalf anonymously but his hosts always seemed to know all about him, and often entertained him well. Sometimes he was offered a woman at the end of the evening; he always said yes, always escorted her to his room, and she always found herself in his bed the next morning, with no memory of the night but enough money to get herself free.

He didn’t allow himself a modus operandi, a way for someone to begin tracking his movements; what was the use of knowing a hundred ways to kill if you weren’t going to use all of them? He never failed, at the end of the job, to send the same message along with his kill confirmation. It was one word:

When?

—————————————————————

Felicity could smell the curry as soon as she and William—dammit, Tyler—made it through the back door. They shucked their shoes in the mud room and she reminded him, like always, to lock the door behind them.

“Hello,” she hollered over the clang of a pot hitting the stainless steel sink. Water was running counterpoint to the stove vent. A calico kitten sidled into the room and wound its way through her legs in greeting as she dropped her purse and discarded her jacket. 

“Watch it, kitty,” she mumbled absently. She nudged it out of her way with one bare foot and stepped into the kitchen. Every surface was covered with some kind of cookware or ingredient, but the chaos had still managed to produce beautiful bowls of Chicken Tikka and Chana Masala, steaming on the counter.

“Greetings,” the cook offered, his back to her as he stood at the stove. He was tall and lean—a marathon runner—sporting an apron over his slacks and dress shirt. Felicity stopped beside him to rest an arm on the counter, one foot perched on top of the other.

“Smells amazing.”

“Ta very much. Naan coming up; grab yourself a drink.”

“You want one,” she offered as she opened the fridge and extracted two bottles of beer without waiting for an answer, plus the milk for William. Her stepson had the cat clutched against himself with one hand as he reached to take the jug from her with the other. 

“Hi Duncan,” he mumbled. God, when did his voice get so deep? He had surpassed her in height—even in her heels—over the summer, but he was not a talkative kid, so she sometimes forgot that his voice had changed.

“Wash your hands,” she reminded him quietly after Duncan’s reply, but otherwise the three of them moved about in a comfortable silence. The kitchen table was covered in paperwork, so they carried their dinner to the island and settled around it to eat and talk over the day. 

They were sopping their plates with the last of the Naan before Felicity got up the courage to ask about the results of the latest computer run. Duncan moved from his stool, swinging one long leg up over and hopping forward on the other to reach across to the cluttered table and extract a paper. He regained his seat and wiped his mouth with his napkin before setting the paper on the granite next to her in offering.

He watched her eyes roam over the report with a barely-concealed grin, his knuckles rapping on the counter with nervous energy as he waited for her to finish and absorb the information. Even William leaned over her shoulder to look. Felicity bit her lip and let a sigh out through her nose before lifting her eyes to meet his, but still she didn’t speak.

“This is good news, Felicity. It’s ready.”

She studied him silently, a detached part of her brain noting the crinkles around his eyes that weren’t tanned the same as the rest of his handsome face. She liked the way her name rolled off his tongue with his accent; it reminded her of Walter.

“Felicity?”

She glanced back down at the paper, afraid to admit that this might actually be happening: Smoak Technologies might be on its way to being born in her kitchen over Indian food. She wanted to pinch herself.

And hug Oliver.

Duncan sensed her hesitation and eased back, catching William’s eye instead and silently requesting his help with the dishes. When the dishwasher was full William disappeared to his bedroom to start his homework with the kitten on his heels, and Duncan joined Felicity at the kitchen table where she had retreated to double check the results he’d handed her. 

“Well,” he pressed, chin in hand as he watched her. 

“It looks clean.” She smoothed the paper with her fingers and met his eye. “I think you’re right.” They grinned at each other in triumph before Felicity shook her head, overwhelmed. “What’s the next step?”

“Well,” Duncan began with a lift of his shoulders, “the home office need to see it.” He dipped his head to catch her eye. “Need to see you.”

“Duncan,” she spluttered, “I can’t just fly off to London! I have a job. And a son. Not to mention we’re in protective custody!” Her loud voice was threatening an appearance; she sat back and glanced over her shoulder in the direction of William’s room. To his credit, her outburst didn’t phase Duncan a bit. 

“There’s a fall school holiday coming up, isn’t there. William would come along, of course.” He raised a hand when her mouth opened in rebuttal. “The company will pick up the cost, and I’ve already cleared it with Lyla. She said you could bring John as your security detail. All you have to do is say yes, my darling.”

Felicity’s heart leapt at the idea of spending time with Dig; they had only communicated via phone or email for the past three months.   
She took a deep breath and nodded.

“Okay. Unless William has some objection, I’m in.”

Duncan reached for her hand and placed a kiss against her knuckles, which made her smile.

“Brilliant,” he said softly.

July 2018

Agent Watson sat back in the Warden’s leather desk chair and crossed her arms.

“The current US administration—for better or for worse—has turned the world upside down. Pulling out of old alliances, entering new alliances with former long-standing enemies, upending the rules as the world has known them since the end of the Cold War. Every department we have is scrambling to keep up with the changes.”

She sat forward to lean her arms on the desk but Oliver didn’t move.

“We need someone with no affiliation to any US agency or branch of the military to carry out precision strikes on a classified list of individuals.” Watson arched an eyebrow. “We’re talking surgical precision, Mr Queen.”

Oliver dropped his gaze to his manacled hands.

“I don’t kill any more,” he ground out in his newly-permanent Arrow voice.

“Seems to me you don’t see your family any more either.”

His head whipped up, eyes narrowing in hatred; with only one properly-working eye she practically disappeared from his sight. Watson’s head tipped and she almost smiled. 

“I thought that would get your attention. You do this job for the Federal Government—in service to your country—and your record will be expunged. You’ll be free to return to your family and go about living your life.”

Hope soared inside Oliver’s chest but he forced it back down and sat on it; his history with bad deals was far too long.

“What’s the catch? With my freedom.”

Watson did offer him a smile then; the slow, predatory kind.

“The catch is you never, for the rest of your natural life, engage in any form of vigilantism. If you so much as wear a mask to a Halloween party your ass will be back in jail. Forever.”

Silence hung between them for a full minute as Oliver contemplated his choices. He finally shifted forward, his body taut against his restraints, and looked the FBI agent in the eye.

“Two conditions: This agreement is written up and approved by my lawyer.” 

Watson searched the heavens in thought but finally nodded. At her agreement Oliver stood and began shuffling his way to the door beyond which his prison escort waited.

“You said two. What’s the second condition?”

He turned at the door.

“My wife never finds out what I’m doing.”

———————————————————

The house was nice: A renovated craftsman on a quiet street in a good school district. They still had a month to get unpacked and settled before school started. 

A month to get used to referring to themselves and each other as “Diana” and “Tyler”.

John snagged Felicity’s arm as they passed each other coming and going from the moving truck and wrapped one giant arm across her shoulders to pull her close. She stopped and sagged against him; Central City was going to feel so damn far away from the life she really wanted.

“I don’t know if I can do this without him, John,” she mumbled against his bicep. A tear escaped without her permission, and above her he began to sway gently.

“You know what Oliver would say about that,” he whispered, his own eyes not exactly dry. She gave an unladylike sniff and nodded softly. “You and William can’t live in Star City as long as Diaz is out there, but if you’re here at least Barry and the team are nearby, and”—he strung the word out as his attention was pulled to the car that had just parked on the street next to the moving truck—“Lyla has something of a surprise. She’s made contact with someone here in Central City who is going to help you get your business off the ground.”

“John,” she gasped, pulling away so she could look at him, “how...”

Dig tipped his chin up to the open front door to indicate a tall man entering the house. The stranger reached out a hand and she reciprocated, completely at a loss for words as he shook her hand and then stepped closer to buss her cheek in greeting.

“Hello. Duncan Whitsom. Pleasure.”

Her hand was a dead fish, she knew, but her brain was not processing properly. 

“Feli-uh...Di-Diana. Yeah.”

John chuckled behind her and dropped his hands onto her shoulders. 

“It’s okay, Felicity, you can be yourself. He’s been cleared by ARGUS.”

Her mouth snapped shut with a click. 

“Uh, okay. Didn’t know that was an option. Wait. Duncan Whitsom?” The man nodded. “As in SIR Duncan Whitsom?”

“Oh no,” he corrected pleasantly. “Sir Duncan is my father.”

“Of course...” she began with a tilt of her head, but the rest of the sentence died on her lips; the parallel to her first conversation with Oliver Queen took her breath. Her freed hand pressed against her heart and she dropped her eyes to the floor. 

“Well,” Duncan continued after an awkward pause, “it sounds like you’re familiar with my family’s company, so you’ll know we’re fully committed to restoring mobility to as many people around the globe as we can reach. It goes without saying that we are highly motivated to help your idea get off the ground. As soon as you’re ready.” 

He glanced around at the stacks of boxes and took a step back. “I won’t keep you from your house moving, but I’m very much looking forward to working with you.” He nodded once to John before back tracking to the front door. “Cheers,” he called over his shoulder on his way down the steps. 

“Was that okay,” John asked softly as he studied her face. Felicity’s eyes glistened with something besides sad tears for the first time in weeks.

“More than okay, Dig,” she whispered back with a trembling smile.


	3. Chapter 3

October 2018

London again. It shouldn’t surprise him that the banking capital of the world would hold so many enemies of the state. He’d flown commercial; his nervousness about that had lessened over the months as he’d grown more comfortable with his personas. People rarely questioned a white male who acted like he should be there. 

Still, he made an effort to avoid security cameras when he could; Felicity wouldn’t have active facial recognition going for him while she thought he was in prison, but it would be just like her to stumble across his face in the middle of looking for someone else. A tiny smile lifted the corners of his mouth when he pictured it.

——————————————————————

She’d stayed up most of the flight to talk Dig’s ear off and now she felt terrible, but just having her arm looped through his while they traveled in the private jet was the best. Felicity yawned as she cradled a large cup of coffee between her hands and marveled at the way William had adjusted so well to the time change. Teenagers. Sheesh.

Duncan had found them a suite of rooms in a hotel in Mayfair, small but luxurious, and promised them a VIP tour of the city to keep them awake until after supper. It was mid afternoon before he let them take a break in the tea room of the British Museum.

John looked spent but he was keeping alert all the same, sitting back in his chair with his arms crossed and continually scanning the room. Felicity could barely get her eyes to focus on her phone as she checked her email and then the hacked security cams at the prison. Across from her Duncan yawned, intent on sending a text. He glanced up at her and ruffled a hand through his hair with a grin.

“How are you holding up?”

Felicity shot Dig a guilty look. “Regretting all the gabbing,” she said sheepishly.

John gazed at her, expressionless, before nodding slowly in agreement.

“I feel like I should go over my presentation again before tomorrow, but I don’t think I can keep my eyes from crossing.” A giant yawn overtook her in illustration and Duncan grinned again.

“We’re not expected until midday. Plenty of time to revise in the morning after you’ve rested up.”

His chiming phone interrupted their conversation and he glanced away to read it and send back an immediate reply. Felicity perked up and leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table.

“Good news?”

He looked back up at her, his eyes alight.

“James is in town,” he replied softly, which made Felicity catch her lower lip in her teeth. “He wants to get together tonight, but...” Duncan trailed off, unsure, but Felicity tipped her head to the side and grinned.

“We’re not expected until midday, remember?”

——————————————————————

Felicity made it to seven o’clock and called it a win. She was just crawling into bed when she remembered the promise she’d made to herself about this trip: She threw back the covers with a groan and got up to dig the two postcards she’d bought at the British Museum out of her bag. The hotel pen didn’t want to write at first, but after enough circles indented into the memo pad the bright blue ink appeared and she sighed in relief. 

She scribbled out a practically illegible note to her mom, intending to mail it the next morning. Donna had always wanted to travel, so Felicity was determined to include her on this adventure as best she could. One postcard a day, that’s what she’d decided.

The other took a bit longer, because she wanted it to be neat. She took her time, despite her fatigue, keeping her writing as small as possible in order to include all the details of the day. In their summer away before Ivy Town she and Oliver had skipped London, but now that she was here without him she bitterly regretted the omission. She wouldn’t mail this one, because she feared he would never receive it in prison; she had started a box back home for all these memories, and the postcards would go there.

On the off-chance she ever saw him again. 

——————————————————————

He dreamed of Felicity that night. The decade of nightmares she once stilled within him had returned with a vengeance in prison; he almost welcomed them with a kind of morbid anticipation, because they kept him on the edge of sleep and more alert to danger. But for some reason, here, on top of the covers in the nicest London hotel the US government would spring for, she came to him—came for him—in a vision that left him wide-eyed and gasping, his arms flung out and his hands questing for her. 

Oliver rolled over to muffle his aching need against the duvet and stare into the darkness. 

——————————————————————-

They had waited in the hall, John and William; both stood as Felicity exited the conference room, her face a curious mixture of excitement and terror. She had barely made it two steps before Duncan slipped out the door behind her, taking care to pull it closed softly.

“Well,” John asked for the both of them, as nervous as Felicity had ever seen her old friend. 

“It was a brilliant presentation, Felicity,” Duncan cut in before she could form a coherent thought. “The Board will still have to deliberate, of course, but I can’t imagine the answer will be anything but a resounding yes.”

Felicity turned shining eyes to him even as she reached for William’s arm, and Duncan winked at her.

“I think we should celebrate this evening. Anyone for a show?”

————————————————————-

He crouched on the roof across the street from the theatre; after all these years, he still preferred the bird’s eye view. The target wouldn’t be here until tomorrow, attending a matinee, but he liked to spend as much time as possible familiarizing himself with the kill zone. 

The block the building sat on wasn’t square, which made figuring vantage points tricky; this was his third building to climb for the evening, but now he was satisfied with his work and ready to go. Oliver made his way down to street level and turned the corner to head back to his hotel, but just as he was passing by the theatre entrance, on the opposite side of the street, he saw her.

Even without the blonde hair—or the ponytail—he knew it was Felicity. For a crazy moment he thought he had conjured his dream from the night before: She was wearing a beautiful coat, and her trademark glasses. A downward flick of his eyes showed him sky high heels; she had just finished kicking one leg up behind her, and if he’d closed his eyes he probably could’ve caught the sound of her laugh drifting across the street. 

Was that her natural hair color? He’d only seen the college goth phase of her pre-blonde days; the exact shade of brown was hard to tell under the lighting of the marquee, but whatever it was suited her. It was loose and wavy, the way she wore it when she was relaxed and happy. He liked it.

The shoulder of a passerby bumped his but Oliver hardly noticed, especially once William came into view. His son, here in London, looking even taller than he’d been five months ago. Oliver’s heart began to race painfully, at war as it was with his brain, screaming at him to cross the street to them. His body clearly sided with his heart, because he took a step toward the curb before his brain wrestled back control and froze him in place. And that’s when he saw John.

In his fascination with his wife he’d failed to notice, but Dig was standing just behind her, looking every ounce a bodyguard with his head on a swivel as he escorted his charges toward the theatre entrance. The next moment Oliver was sheltered in the closest doorway, pressed back against the stonework and holding his breath. 

He tilted his head out enough to find Diggle again; he was glancing down and smiling at something Felicity was saying, though his eyes constantly flicked around them. Keeping an eye out. Oliver reminded himself to start breathing again as he continued to track the three of them. What the hell were they doing in London? 

Just then a tall, thin man rushed toward their group and Oliver’s heart stopped in terror; he took a step out from the doorway as the man scooped Felicity up and spun her in a crazy circle while John just stood there and SMILED. Everyone was talking and laughing at once, even William, who gave the man a high five. 

Oliver’s breath was coming out in wrecked pants as he watched the scene unfold, his need to stay out of Dig’s sight line completely forgotten. The tall man said something to Felicity and she nodded yes enthusiastically, then he took her hand and tucked it protectively under his arm and led the way inside the theatre.

Before Oliver could process what he’d just seen, they were gone.

—————————————————————

He wasn’t without technological resources, though he kept it to a minimum for simplicity’s sake. The laptop Watson had loaned him was above average in capability; it only took minutes to find the hotel where they were staying using John’s name; they weren’t that far from him, actually. 

Oliver was in and out of her room in under thirty minutes. 

————————————————————

Felicity dropped her coat onto the floor with an exhausted—but highly content—sigh. Her boys were off to their own beds after a wonderful evening at the theatre. News of the Board’s approval had come just as they were going in; Felicity’s feet had barely touched the ground since. 

She changed into her pajamas and plopped belly-first onto the bed to check her phone. They had one more full day of sightseeing before the flight home on Sunday; William had requested the Tower of London and a ride on the London Eye. Felicity smiled to herself, and then wished for the thousandth time that Oliver could be there to see his son’s excitement. 

She stretched off the bed for her bag and fished for the day’s postcards: Piccadilly Circus at night—because it reminded her a bit of Vegas—for her mother, and one of Buckingham Palace for Oliver. His note should include some clever word play concerning Queens; Felicity bit her lip in thought and stood to reach for the pen, and that’s when her hand froze above the desk: The one from the hotel was gone.

A red pen sat in its place.


	4. Chapter 4

October 2018

John picked up on the third ring.

“It’s me.”

“...Oliver?”

“Can you talk?”

“Yeah, sure. Of course. Man, are you okay? Lyla and Felicity have been—were you in solitary? They couldn’t find you.” 

Oliver closed his eyes and let John’s concern wash over him; he was out of practice listening to someone worry. 

“I’m okay. They finally let me have a phone call.”

“And you called me? What about Felicity? She’s been out of her mind with worry, Oliver.”

“Dig, I will. Next time. I needed—“ he cleared his throat when his ruined voice threatened to betray him—“I need to know if she’s okay. Is everything okay?”

John sighed. His ‘Jesus Christ, Oliver’ sigh. 

“Yeah. She’s fine. I just saw her recently. And William. They’re both safe.” There was a beat of silence. “They miss you, man. It’s been hard.”

He was nodding before the words would come. “I know.”

And then: “What about Diaz?”

John growled; Oliver pictured him rubbing a hand up over his head in frustration.

“Back to running the city. He already owns everyone who could take him down legally, and doing it the other way won’t work because we can’t get to him. The te—“ he stopped himself—“the others have scattered. Dinah managed to get on the force in Coast City, Curtis is working in Chicago. Rene and Zoe are gone too. Felicity and William—“

“Don’t,” Oliver cut him off. “It’s better if I don’t know.” 

“Okay.”

Oliver smoothed the fingers of one hand across an eyebrow and bowed his head.

“It’s good to hear your voice, John.”

“You too, man. What’s with the growl?”

Oliver almost chuckled. “Yeah, that.” He sighed. “A gift from a friend.”

It was supposed to be funny, but neither one of them laughed. 

“Call her.”

“I will. As soon as I can.”

They both breathed into the phone a moment longer, hanging on for dear life.

“Take care, Oliver.”

“Goodbye, John.”

——————————————————————-

He took the two agents outside her office down without breaking a sweat. To her credit, Watson managed to only look faintly annoyed when he kicked in her door.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing,” she scolded mildly. One of her hands drifted to her desk drawer.

“Don’t,” he warned. She paused. 

“Have a seat, Mr Queen.”

“I’ll stand, thanks.” In order to watch the door he shifted to the corner near the window, but not in front of it. Thinking of snipers. Watson’s eyes flicked to her computer screen and back to him. Her lips curved up in a smirk.

“Where’s the chip?”

Oliver matched her smirk before turning just enough to pull the collar at the back of his shirt away from his right shoulder; the stitches were still there, the skin an angry puckered line.

“Took me awhile to find it. I’m not as good at sutures with my left hand, but I managed.”

“I assume this means you want out.”

He shrugged, a faint lift of his shoulders.

“I want Diaz.”

He got her with that one. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“You couldn’t get him with your whole team and the FBI for back up.”

The line of Oliver’s mouth slowly curved up at the edges into an actual, amused smile. In the late afternoon sun his eyes glittered like sapphires.

“I’ve learned a lot since then.”

——————————————————————-

Felicity’s phone hummed gently on the conference table. She sneaked a glance at the principal, but her back was turned as she added to the brainstorm on the white board. 

The call was from Lyla.

She scooped up her phone and stood, drawing all eyes to herself.

“Um, sorry. Superintendent’s office,” she fibbed, already on her way out the door. She answered on the walk to her office.

“Felicity, he’s back on the cameras.”

“What?!” She practically ran the rest of the way, falling into her chair and calling up the hacked feed simultaneously. She began flicking through images of men in cells she had long ago memorized and given nicknames: Fat Guy, Push ups, Other Fat Guy, The Beard. She could rattle them off in her sleep. But this time, just after Baldy but before Jeff, she saw him. 

Felicity reached out to him without thinking. 

He was lying on his cot, feet crossed and hands on his chest, facing up at the ceiling. From that distance she wasn’t sure if his eyes were open or closed; at home she could probably enhance it and watch for blinking. But ohmygod he was alive, and the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. 

She suddenly remembered her phone, and Lyla.

“I found him,” she confirmed with a sigh. “Thank you for letting me know.”

“My pleasure,” Lyla replied, clearly relieved herself. “He sure is a sight for sore eyes.”

Felicity’s lip trembled.

“He sure is.”

July 2018

Watson insisted on a full battery of tests before she unleashed him into the world; for the first time in his life Oliver failed an eye exam. He was vaccinated for things he’d never even heard of, including a couple of diseases they assured him the rest of the world didn’t yet know existed. Comforting. 

“Minor surgery might fix the eye,” Watson told him.

“Not a chance.”

She’d smiled then, amused. 

“I wasn’t asking permission.”

He woke with the blind spot only partially improved and, curiously, sore all over. 

“What did you do.” Gravelly and pissed and very much NOT a question. 

Watson’s voice drifted from the other side of the room. 

“A chip. GPS tracker. You’re a little too valuable to lose, Mr Queen.”

New clothes, new technology, no less than six passports. The first night on his own with the laptop he’d almost looked for her, but he wasn’t sure if the FBI had hidden them or if ARGUS had. If it was the latter he didn’t want the former finding out. Besides, all Felicity needed was a whiff of someone poking into her life electronically to pique her curiosity: The woman hated mysteries. If she found him she’d want to help, and he couldn’t let her hands get as dirty as he suspected his were about to be. 

Immersion being his thing, apparently, they dropped him in the middle of France for a week with a paid-up hotel room but only enough euros for one meal. When his French was passable they did the same thing in Italy, and then Spain.

And then they let him loose. 

October 2018

He’d come into the building undetected—at least until he’d met the agents outside her door—but alarms were finally beginning to sound. Time to go. Oliver flipped his empty hands palm-up.

“There are only two ways I get out of here.”

Watson nodded in agreement. 

“At the moment I am very tempted to put you straight back into General Population and start the dead pool.”

It was Oliver’s turn to nod. 

“You could do that. If it wasn’t for the file I’ve been putting together on every person I’ve killed for you in the last three months. If I die,” he lifted his eyes to glance at the heavens, “it launches.”

“Sounds to me like your wife has been busy.” There was a threat behind that statement, but also uneasiness. Got you again, he thought.

“Felicity has no idea where I’ve been. I did this all on my own.” Was it his imagination, or could he hear feet pounding up the stairs?

“Let me go get Diaz,” he pushed.

Definitely not his imagination. He had about thirty seconds.

Watson’s eyes narrowed. 

“Your directive never included disrupting sex trafficking rings, yet you’ve freed almost a dozen women over the last three months.”

Oliver nodded once. Ten seconds. He let a long slow breath out his nose and centered himself. 

Watson sighed.

“What do you need from me?”

—————————————————————

Two days before Halloween: Where had the year gone? He directed the driver to pull over a street shy of the address and got out. All he had was a backpack; the rest he’d burned.

Except for the passports, of course.

He heard them before he saw them, kneeling down on the front porch and arguing good naturedly over the most efficient way to get the guts out of a pumpkin. A finished piece already sat on the steps with a candle inside. They’d carved a symbol into the front: Pumpkin Pi. Of course. Cute.

William said something too low to hear—when did his voice get so deep?—and Felicity giggled, flapping her hands wildly to shake off the slimy bits.

Oliver was almost to the porch, still partially hidden by a pine tree, when the front door opened and a male voice called them to supper. 

——————————————————————

Felicity didn’t recognize the number, but something told her to answer anyway. She pantomimed for William to help Duncan clear up the dishes as she said hello.

“Hey,” he said, deep and gravelly. The Arrow voice.

“Oliver?”

“Hey,” he repeated. A whisper this time.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe it! They’re letting you call?!” Felicity couldn’t keep from yelling. Or shaking.

“Better than that. I’m out.”

She apologized as soon as she stopped screaming. In the meantime the commotion brought William and Duncan to her side, curious and not a little concerned. 

“Where are you? Do you need a ride? Should we call ARGUS? I can get Lyla and John—“

“Felicity!” That stopped her. “It’s okay. I’m at a place for now.” He paused. “A halfway house or something. It’s...it’s required.”

Her heart was going to explode if she didn’t get him back NOW.

“How long,” she asked, breathless and sad.

“I...I don’t know yet. Look, I’ll call you again tomorrow. Can I call you tomorrow?”

“Sure. Yes.”

Neither of them could hang up.

“Do you have a cold?”

“What?”

“Your voice...”

Oliver chuckled, the first in a very long time.

“Nope. It’s the new me, I’m afraid.”

“Oh.” She gripped the phone tighter. “I like it.”

“You do?”

She nodded, forgetting like always that he couldn’t see her through the phone.

“You’re nodding, aren’t you.”

That’s when the tears started. “Yes,” she squeaked, trying to keep it together just a couple more minutes.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered, not exactly holding it together himself. 

“Call me tomorrow,” she demanded, her voice straining through the tears.

“I will.”

“Oliver?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”


	5. Chapter 5

November 2018

“Will you let me do it, please?”

“I think it should be me. At least the first time.”

“Felicity, darling, he’s been eating nothing but prison food for six months. Don’t you think he’s been through enough?”

“I’m sticking my tongue out at you.”

Duncan chuckled.

“You know what you are good at, though.”

Felicity sighed. “Over-analyzing?”

“Baking, pet.”

She hummed in thought as she stabbed her fork into her salad. 

“Let me make the dinner. On my honor, I will sneak away as soon as it is on the table. Then you can eat in peace as a family, and afterwards”—he paused for dramatic effect—“you can offer him dessert.”

Felicity blushed furiously on her end of the line. Duncan had no way of knowing that’s what she and Oliver actually called it; she would never discuss that with anyone, even her mother.

Especially her mother. 

“Yes?” He sounded so hopeful.

“Alright. Yes.”

“Wonderful. What does our Mr Queen like best?”

Felicity didn’t even have to think about it.

“Italian.”

———————————————————————-

They had been talking on the phone every day for a week, Felicity curled up at the end of the sofa or tucked into bed, Oliver...well, probably on a rooftop somewhere, knowing him. No, she knew he was wherever he was staying, using the communal phone, because she asked twelve times in every conversation if he needed to let someone else use it and every time he said it was fine. 

Oliver Queen had never been talkative on a good day, but he was even more reticent now; he gently deflected all inquiries into his life over the past few months, how he came to be out so suddenly, or where, exactly, he was now. The most Felicity got out of him was a sigh and a confession that he just needed to hear the sound of her voice; he said she was his best defense against the demons, a thought that gave her the shivers. She didn’t push. 

She did ask at least once every call how soon until he could come home, to their new home, the house he’d never laid eyes on in a suburb of a city he’d never lived in; he would sigh and say he didn’t know. At least until two days ago, when he’d hinted at the end of their call that maybe he could come to see them, for dinner perhaps, as a sort of transition into regular life. Felicity had jumped at the chance.

But now she was in a panic.

“Sorry I’m late,” she hollered as she dumped her things by the door and scampered into the kitchen to find William stirring away at a big bubbling pot of sauce under Duncan’s direction. As usual when the Englishman dropped by to make them dinner, it looked like a bomb had gone off.

“Why didn’t I get a house with a formal dining room,” she whined under her breath, scurrying to clear the kitchen table of her latest attempts to understand international patent laws. The business had rocketed forward over the last two weeks: Whitsom Mobility had agreed to manufacture the chip in their Central City facility, she was finally able to pin down Curtis and get him to agree to be a silent partner, and she had spent more hours than she would care to admit debating logo colors, many of those hours with Oliver humming along politely as she attempted to describe yet another shade of blue over the phone. 

“Thanks for picking Will up for me today. It was my first standardized testing week, and of course half the laptops crashed. What a nightmare. I think I’m caught up now, though.” Her voice drifted out from the hall closet where the contents of the table were being stashed.

“We fell a little behind ourselves, I’m afraid,” Duncan replied over his shoulder. “Just say the word when you need me to disappear. William can take it from here, I’ve no doubt. Good God, the bread!”

“What about the bread,” Felicity questioned nervously as she skidded up to the plate cupboard on bare feet. 

“Just need to get it in the oven.” Duncan squeezed past her to get to the freezer. “I had intended to do up the washing before I left, but it’s almost six already.”

Felicity crossed to the table with an armful of plates and salad bowls, a gleam in her eye.

“You have time. I’ve never known Oliver Queen to be early a day in his life.”

“Well then this might prove to be awkward.”

She whirled away from the table, arms still full, and her heart stopped: Oliver stood at the entrance to the kitchen in gray pants and a buttoned up jean jacket, an enigmatic smile on his lips. The kitten had already found him; he was holding her in the crook of one arm.

William got to him first, launching into his father hard enough to push him back a step; Oliver gripped him tight with his free arm for several moments. Felicity herself was frozen in place. His eyes found hers over his son’s head.

“I didn’t know you liked cats,” she said, out of nowhere. 

“I didn’t either.” So soft, like he was trying to downplay the permanent growl. 

They finally disengaged from their embrace, but William made no move to step away from Oliver’s side. And still she couldn’t move.  
It wasn’t until Oliver stepped forward and held out his hand that she remembered the giant English elephant in the room, but by then the two men had taken up matters on their own, introducing themselves with a handshake. 

At that point the cat, sensing the tension in the room, made her escape from Oliver’s arms to a quiet corner for a bath, and that seemed to be the cue for everyone else to move as well. Felicity turned back to the table to unburden her arms of dishes, and she heard Oliver ask his son quietly where he could wash his hands. A zing of electricity passed between them as William led Oliver behind her to the powder room; her eyes closed involuntarily. 

As soon as they were out of the room Duncan was shedding his apron. He raked a nervous hand through his hair and crossed by her on his way out the back door; Felicity snagged his arm to hold him up, her eyes wide with panic.

“Steady on,” he said softly. “Talk tomorrow.”

She nodded wildly but let him go, mouthing a thank you as he glanced back one last time with a grin. 

Oliver was a statue in the doorway when she turned back around. 

——————————————————————-

A glimmer of normalcy returned over dinner. They shared the memory of their first Italian dinner, which William got a kick out of; she should’ve known any story involving a missile launcher would be highly entertaining to a boy his age. 

William cleared the table without being asked, leaving Felicity to present her contribution to the celebration, a faintly lopsided layer cake covered in flaked coconut.

“It’s amazing,” Oliver pronounced as she set it in the middle of the table.

“Well don’t put a level on it,” she deflected, equal parts self-conscious and proud.

“It’s beautiful, Felicity,” he assured her.

They ignored the dishes and taught Oliver how to play Exploding Kittens afterwards, the remains of the cake and an empty bottle of wine in the center of the table. The awkwardness didn’t creep back in until it was time to send William off to bed.

“Will you be here in the morning,” he asked into Oliver’s chest. Felicity could almost hear the sound of her heart breaking open. Oliver blinked at the ceiling a couple of times; his eyes raked over her on their way back down, but wouldn’t hold.

“I don’t think I can stay tonight, but soon,” he promised. The boy nodded, resigned, only remembering at the foot of the stairs to wish them a goodnight. In the meantime Felicity was slowly coming apart on the inside.

“You can’t stay,” she asked, a broken little squeak from her soul. Her throat burned with the need to cry, so she held her breath to keep it contained. They were squared off but not close; Oliver suddenly took a step forward to put them within arm’s reach.

“That depends.” His efforts to soften the growl all night were undone with two words, and Felicity moaned in fear of his next sentence. How this man could stand so still but say so much with his body she would never understand. For the first time all night he let her see behind his eyes; the fear and uncertainty there were nearly her undoing. 

She reached out for him but his hand came up, captured and held her around the wrist in a grip so light it was practically a caress; his head shook a ‘no’ almost imperceptibly.

“Felicity.” A whispered gasp. “Am I still your husband?”

———————————————————————

She could never fully recall that night, but flashes of it would come back to her at random times for the rest of her life. The way he stepped forward without waiting for an answer, deciding to claim her no matter. Swooping in to catch her mouth in the kiss he should’ve given her before they parted six months before. His fingers in her hair, freeing her ponytail as he marched her backward...where? It wasn’t his house, he had to stop and ask, but she was crying too hard to answer. 

The first time, hard and fast, muffling her cries against his shoulder. His grip left her bruised. In the aftermath she’d pushed him away, up against the wall, so she could look him over and begin to catalogue the new scars, including the jagged pink line on the back of his shoulder, obviously fresh. 

Satisfied that he was whole, she’d taken his hand, led him back to bed, and they’d started again, with aching tenderness and no few tears. 

——————————————————————-

“Duncan,” he said an hour later, though his hands and mouth were very much occupied with other things. 

“Oliver, now?”

“He was in my kitchen,” he murmured, holding her still with his weight when she tried to wriggle away. Felicity’s hands fell to his shoulders, intending to push against him, but caressing him instead.

“Technically, it’s my kitchen—easy,” she gasped, when he nipped too hard.

“Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry. Felicity relaxed under him and lifted her hips, his cue to quit clowning around and get back to work.

“He’s a friend. Lyla introduced us, blame her—oh, right there. Yesssss.”

Oliver took her to the edge and stopped, to her vociferous annoyance. 

“So, nothing’s going on?”

“Wha...what?! For gods sake, Oliver, no! He has a boyfriend! Will you pu-lease let it go?”

He had an impossibly beautiful view of her from this angle; he rested his chin on her stomach and hummed in agreement as he gazed at her. 

“Okay.” Oliver turned his attention back to the task at hand, mulling over where to go next. “He’s a slob,” he added, insisting on the last word as he dipped his head to taste her and turn any further rebuttal into moans for him. 

——————————————————————

She slept, he probably didn’t. When she woke the room was a shade lighter; morning was on its way.

“Why are you here,” she asked softly, draped across his chest with her fingers captured inside his. Oliver huffed, amused.

“Why are you OUT,” she clarified. “Why did they let you go?”

He concentrated on the ceiling.

“I’m going after Diaz.”

Felicity stiffened against him and the arm he had wrapped around her tightened; he was afraid she would push away. With good reason, she thought bitterly.

“Oliver, he’s back in charge of the city. The FBI pulled out—despite their promise to stay until he was caught—and he worked his way back in. There was a power vacuum; no mayor, no Green Arrow. He walked right in and took it.” He could almost taste the words she was biting off.

“I know,” was all he said.

“Oliver, how are you going to do it?”

“With the Bratva.”

Felicity tipped her head and blinked; obviously he had lost his mind.

“You already tried using the Bratva, when we were fighting Chase, and he didn’t have all of Star City’s resources at his fingertips.”

Oliver’s head lifted off the bed to look her in the eye. 

“That time I didn’t use ALL the Bratva.”


	6. Chapter 6

November 2018

“The Bratva?! Aren’t we trying to keep the Russians OUT of our country?” 

She addressed the question to Oliver’s back after he gave her backside one final caress and scooted out from under her to swing his legs out of bed and sit up.

“They won’t be staying,” he said simply, standing to pull up his boxer briefs. Even exasperated Felicity found this view of him captivating. She sat up herself, waiting until he’d pulled his shirt over his head to let the sheet fall and remind him what he was leaving behind. A slow smile lit his face but he dropped his eyes, almost shy.

“I told William I couldn’t stay, so I probably shouldn’t be here when he wakes up.”

“When can you? Stay, I mean. You know, permanently.”

Oliver scooped his pants up off the floor. “Starting tonight, maybe. I’ll see what I can do.” He disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Felicity’s eyes to slide to her reflection in the mirror over the dresser; she looked thoroughly worked over, glowing. Content.

She was finger-combing her hair, sheet still pooled at her waist, when he reappeared. The sight froze him in his tracks; his head tipped to rest against the doorframe. 

“God you’re beautiful,” he growled, raising a blush she swore started at her toes. He straightened, glanced at the clock, and grabbed his jacket. “I’ll call you later.” 

Felicity nodded with her lip caught between her teeth and a sound of deep need rumbled from Oliver’s chest.

“Don’t tempt me,” he warned, in the best kind of threat. Halfway through the door he stopped and turned. “See if you can track Anatoly down for me.”

———————————————————————

She hacked in without thinking; it was Saturday, the day she backed up all her devices, and in the meantime always searched for Oliver in a cell. Despite the previous night’s activities with the man in question, her fingers moved on their own. Muscle memory.

Halfway through her first cup of coffee, right after Baldy but before Jeff, there he was: Oliver Queen, shirtless and doing sit ups. Felicity stared at the screen for minutes after the scene had moved on to Knuckles, Slim, Tattoos. 

Eventually she rose up out of her chair, someone else in the body Felicity Smoak once inhabited, and floated into her bedroom for the shoebox tucked in the back of the closet. She carried it to the bed but was stopped cold at the sight of the sex-rumpled sheets; her legs folded under and she sank to the floor. 

Down at the bottom of the box, under the copy of William’s report card, the playbill, and four postcards, her fingers found the red pen. She held it in her palm and counted the lengths of her breaths, in and out. All at once she was up, the box sliding off her lap to the floor but the pen still clutched in her fist. 

———————————————————————

Oliver set off for a run, leaving the seedy motel he’d been living in for the past week; he’d been released from prison with only the money he’d had in his wallet when he went in and that was now gone, so the prospect of moving back in with his family was both a relief and a necessity.

He headed into downtown Central City, quiet this early in the morning on a Saturday. His favorite place to run was the park where he and Felicity were married; it had almost been a year since that beautiful crisp day beside the water, John Diggle’s arms raised to the sky in benediction as he and his wife shared their first kiss beside Barry and Iris. 

Tonight should be a celebration, he thought, taking the lower path that ran beside the waterfront. It was high time he got back to being the guy his wife relied on to keep her fed, and not just because Duncan’s alfredo sauce was good, dammit. If he had any money he’d show up with an armful of groceries and make dinner; maybe he’d call Felicity and ask her to run out for a few things. Oliver mentally added Open a New Credit Card Account to his To Do List and kept running. 

——————————————————————

Her phone was first: Felicity back-traced the number he’d called her from every night for the past week. Not a landline from a halfway house after all, but a cell phone. 

By the time William finally slunk down the stairs in search of breakfast she had found him—just a glimpse; he was, after all, very very good—on the security camera outside their London hotel on the night they’d gone to the show. 

Oliver had been in London. 

Felicity sat back in her chair and stared at the computer screen. 

Eventually she went back to the prison footage, isolated the camera in his cell, and began recording it, looking for loops. 

———————————————————————

She didn’t answer when he called, so he left a message and tried not to panic; a missed call didn’t automatically mean trouble, he reminded himself. Oliver showered and checked out of the motel. The place was truly awful, but the occasional loud altercations in the background of his daily phone calls to Felicity had seemed to help sell the idea that he was transitioning back into the real world with a bunch of ex-cons. 

Once, in the middle of the night, gunfire erupted down the hall, sending Oliver tumbling out of bed; not from fear of injury, but concern the police might show up and look for witnesses. The last thing he needed was for someone to recognize him.

His deal with Watson had included looping camera footage of him in his prison cell; Diaz might have killed off Cayden James, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t bring in another computer genius. If his plan was going to work, Oliver needed complete surprise. 

And Anatoly Knyazev.

——————————————————————-

He called once; Felicity was still at the computer, hugging her knees to her chest and staring at the mounting evidence against her husband. Her eyes shifted to the phone but she didn’t move, transfixed by the screen.

————————————————————————

Oliver had just enough pocket change left to get himself into downtown and back on the bus; he’d spent all his free time the past week following Duncan Whitsom and happened to know the man was planning to spend a couple of hours of his Saturday in the office. Despite Felicity’s assurances that Lyla had vetted him, Oliver wasn’t comfortable sharing any part of his family with this man until HE’D checked him out. Thoroughly. 

The thirty minute trip in gave him plenty of time to replay his recent reunion with Felicity in vivid detail. Thoughts and memories of her had kept him going these past six months; the prospect of having her back for good—after this last mission to take out Diaz—seemed like a dream come true. 

Oliver stepped off the bus two blocks from Whitsom Mobility, temporarily blocked out the images of his wife, and focused on his target.

——————————————————

His call still hadn’t been returned by the time he was ready to catch the bus to Felicity’s neighborhood. Nagging unease had grown steadily throughout the day; he was practically vibrating with tension by the time the bus dropped him off a few blocks from the house. He didn’t dare call now, since he’d let her assume he was using a landline. Oliver made a mental note as he crossed the last street to dump the phone as soon as he knew she and William were safe.

Lights were on, everything looked fine. He took two deep cleansing breaths and stepped up onto the porch; no need to let himself in the back door this time, not with Duncan at the opera for the evening. 

As soon as Felicity opened the door he knew something was off: She blocked the opening with her body, her bottom lip captured beneath her teeth, and not in the ‘come hither’ way.

“Hi,” he said softly, his wringing hands giving away his nervousness. 

“What were you doing in London,” she asked without preamble, her voice quiet but steely.

“What?” He was caught completely flat-footed.

Felicity raised one arm very slowly toward him; with a flick of her wrist she flipped her hand palm-up and opened her fingers to reveal the red pen. Oliver felt the blood drain from his face even as a near-hysterical part of his brain threatened to make him laugh out loud.

As good as he was, Felicity Smoak would always be better. 

He stared at the pen for several seconds in order to avoid confronting the expression he knew he would see on her face. 

“Felicity...” No other words would come.

“Why were you in London, Oliver?”

“A job,” he finally choked out, “for Samanda Watson. Or...someone. I may never know for sure.”

“A killing job?”

He nodded, his eyes flicking up to hers against his will and then away just as fast. He did not want to dwell on what he saw there. He heard her swallow; his downcast eyes watched her bare feet shift uneasily.

“Was that the deal the whole time? That prison would just be a cover?”

Oliver’s head shook a ‘no’ quickly and he tried to get his eyes up off the ground; he finally managed to focus them on the glow of the doorbell. 

“It may have been Watson’s plan, but I didn’t find out for about six weeks.” He forced himself to look her in the eye. “Not until after the second time I almost died.”

Felicity’s demeanor changed then, a shift he felt more than saw. Something broke through to her, he thought with a surge of hopefulness. But just when he thought she might come to him—his clasped hands released themselves to be ready—she pulled the door toward herself, using her petite form to further close him off from the house. She licked her lips before she spoke.

“We order pizza on Saturday nights. You can come in and eat with us,” she tipped her head to the side slightly without breaking eye contact, “and spend time with your son. But I need to process this. You’ll stay somewhere else tonight.”

The breath left his body like he’d been punched in the gut, but he managed to nod anyway. Anything. Anything to be near them, even for a few hours. Felicity nodded too, just a tiny bit, and stepped back to let him in.


	7. Chapter 7

Barry Allen’s couch had not become more comfortable since the last time he’d slept on it. 

The circumstances weren’t that much better either. 

He made sure to be up—sheet and blanket folded—and sitting on the couch before his hosts emerged from their room for the day. Oliver Queen had no intention of being caught lying down by his former student. Ever.

“Morning, Oliver. Sleep well?”

“Fine, thanks.” 

Behind Barry Iris’s eyebrows jumped in mild surprise; must be the new growl, he thought suddenly. Felicity lived to tease him about Iris’s...admiration for him; she’d already been asleep when he showed up last night, vague and taciturn and looking for a place to crash. Something had kept Barry from being his usual curious self then, for which Oliver was extremely grateful, but he was sure the questions were coming this morning.

“Everything okay?”

Sooner than he expected, even. Oliver shrugged and offered them both a tiny, apologetic smile. 

“I think so. With time.”

“Oliver, how are you out of prison?” Iris had turned back with one hand on the refrigerator door in order to ask the question. Oliver sighed.

“This is a terrible answer, but it’s a long story.”

Barry, long-accustomed to suffering his mentor’s displeasure when prying too much, swallowed before speaking.

“Do Felicity and William...?”

Oliver’s mouth quirked up into the sad smile again. “Do they know? Yes. We’ve been talking on the phone for a little over a week, and I saw them both at the house this weekend.”

There was a pause.

“But...not to stay?”

Oliver dropped his gaze to his feet. 

“It’s...complicated.”

Barry glanced at his wife, who gave him a knowing look. “You sound just like Felicity,” he muttered good-naturedly as he reached around Iris for the milk. They didn’t notice Oliver’s shoulders jump in a surprised laugh.

It was quiet for a few minutes as the couple pulled breakfast items out and started their day. Oliver slipped away to the bathroom and returned to find an omelet and a glass of juice waiting on the counter. For some reason the gesture left a catch in his throat; he had to glance away and get himself together before sitting down to eat. 

He asked to do the dishes, wanting to contribute in some way and hoping the mindless chore would soothe him. Iris headed out but Barry hung back, lounging against the wall and watching. Oliver finally chuckled. 

“Something else you want to ask,” he questioned mildly without looking up.

“Just...you know you’re welcome to stay as long as you need...but if you...if there’s something Iris and I can do to help, you know we will. Anything.”

Oliver regarded him from over his shoulder. “Thanks, Barry.”

The other man nodded and shifted off the wall. “Okay. Good. I can free up my day if you wanna hang out—“

“I’ll be fine. But thank you.”

“See you tonight?”

A slight shrug from Oliver. “Kind of hoping not, but we’ll see.”

Barry grinned. “I’ll leave a key under the mat, just in case.”

It was Oliver’s turn to smile. “Barry, if I want in, I won’t need a key.”

Barry’s grin faltered, suddenly not sure if he was kidding.

Oliver didn’t clarify.

————————————————————————

The call came just before lunch.

“Hey,” she said softly. Oliver told himself not to analyze every tiny nuance...but did she sound a little better than she had last night?

“Hi. Sleep well?”

Felicity huffed once. “What’s sleep?” Almost playful.

“Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “I know.”

“William is going to a party at a friend’s house at 2—“

“Is that—sorry—is that safe?” He knew he shouldn’t question her judgement, but the idea made panic bubble up in his chest.

“It’s okay, Oliver. We have an ARGUS agent assigned to us when we go out. He’ll have eyes on him.”

Oliver was reminded again that this was their new normal—because of him—and swallowed hard.

“Okay. Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. I know you worry.” A pause. “So, anyway...would you...could you come over then? So we can talk?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Two o’clock.”

“Okay.”

There was an extended silence. Oliver caught himself breathing shallowly, afraid to hope, afraid to hang up.

Afraid she was going to change her mind. 

“I’ll see you then,” she said finally.

“See you.”

———————————————————————

Arriving at her door empty-handed was becoming a habit he did not enjoy. Oliver tried to remember a time he’d been more nervous, but couldn’t come up with anything.

Felicity was dressed down, in leggings and a hoodie, which felt like a good sign; her designer dresses and killer heels were her armor, she’d once told him. Of course, it was also a Sunday afternoon and he could be completely over-thinking everything. 

She gave him an attempt at a smile—which only served to ratchet up his heart rate in trepidation—and let him in to the house. He followed her to the kitchen and the table that held her laptop. The red pen was next to it.

“Where did you go? Last night.”

Oliver’s gaze glanced off the floor. “I stayed with Barry and Iris.”

Felicity nodded faintly and started to wrap her arms around herself, then thought better of it and dropped them to her sides. She pulled a chair away from the table and perched in it, a foot flat on the seat and her chin on her knee. In her own home she never wore shoes and she never sat in a chair with both feet on the floor. That discovery was one of his favorite Ivy Town memories. 

She had left the seat in front of the laptop open, so Oliver took the hint and sat. Her hand reached across and tapped Enter. 

Felicity had created a timeline of his last six months, starting from the day he went into prison. There were only a few gaps, which she had acknowledged with question marks. His eyes roamed the screen, as impressed as he was horrified.

“How did you...”

She lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug. “Mysteries.”

It was quiet for a minute while he read, and then her fingers reached out and began fiddling with the pen. “Am I close?”

Oliver sat back and sighed. “Remarkably.”

She nodded, suspicions confirmed. Mystery solved. 

“Felicity, Watson—“ He wanted to crawl out of his own skin suddenly. “She offered me an out. I wouldn’t have lived six months in Slabside.” He looked her straight in the eye with the admission. But now that it was out, trading fifteen human lives for his freedom made him look like, well, a monster. His gaze faltered. 

Maybe Adrian Chase had been right all along.

Felicity’s hand stilled on the pen and she cocked her head to get his attention. “Hey. Don’t go there.”

Because of course she knew what he was thinking. 

“You didn’t try to find us? After she let you out?”

Oliver leaned forward to drop his elbows on the table and run both hands through his hair. 

“One of my conditions was that you wouldn’t find out.” Felicity sucked in a breath and he rushed on. “To keep you clear of the blowback if I got caught, Felicity! I was outside any US jurisdiction that would claim me or help me if I got into trouble. God help me if I’d been captured alive—“

“I could’ve helped, Oliver! Dig too!”

“I know.” So so softly. Giving her room to be as mad as she needed to be. When she’d had time to take a couple of breaths he tried again. 

“There’s more.” She gave him the ‘Oh My God, Oliver’ look but let him continue. “There was a list.” He watched Felicity roll her eyes, because Lists. “My deal with Watson was legalized by Jean Loring, but the list wasn’t released to me. I got the names one at a time. I don’t know how many were ultimately on it. I could’ve been doing this until I died.” He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, suddenly exhausted. “Or maybe that was the plan the whole time.”

Felicity’s fingers found the pen again but she was silent, letting him process before he went on.

“I kept records, Felicity. Good ones, on every target. That’s ultimately how I got out of it.” Oliver’s head tilted to the computer screen where Felicity had typed BROKE INTO THE FBI? on October 26th. “That, and my promise to get Diaz once and for all. Watson reasonably suspected you had helped me with the records I’m holding over her. Felicity, things could still go south. I had to keep your fingerprints off of it.” He sighed. “This was how.”

She was quiet, but not closed off. Absorbing, internalizing. He reached his left arm across his body to gesture to his right shoulder blade. 

“That scar?” She nodded slowly in recognition. “It was a GPS tracker. I didn’t know if the FBI or ARGUS had handled your relocation. Either way, I couldn’t have come to you without tipping someone off.”

Felicity’s eyes stayed on his shoulder for almost a full minute, picturing the fresh scar, the jaggedness of the wound, how terrible the stitching job must have looked. 

He’d dug the thing out himself. 

“What about this,” she asked eventually, a very quiet question. Her fingers pushed the red pen a few inches toward him. 

Oliver’s eyes dropped to his hands, clasped in his lap. He sighed heavily. 

“London.” His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Pure coincidence. I was finishing a recon for, um...” he cleared his throat, uncomfortable, “for the next day. At the theatre. I looked up...and there you were.” He raised his head to look at her. To let her see the truth in his eyes. “Then I saw him—“

“Duncan.”

“Yes. He picked you up. Twirled you around.” Oliver demonstrated the motion with a finger. “You looked so happy. I thought maybe...”

“Oliver...”

He did not expect to get choked up. Dammit.

Felicity got up then, just put her palms flat on the table and pushed away, unfolding from her chair to disappear down the hall. Oliver couldn’t even watch her go. 

He lifted his head when he heard her coming back, tipped it to the ceiling briefly, blinded by tears, and listened to her pad across the floor until she came to a stop at his side. Then her small hands were tugging on his arm, trying to get him up; standing seemed to take a year, but when he’d finally managed it she pried at his hands, making them open for her. He heard her sniff and pulled himself back enough to concentrate on her movements.

“This was the only nice thing Agent Watson did for me. She let me keep it.”

Oliver’s breath caught in a gasp as she opened her hand to reveal his wedding band in her palm. When it hadn’t been returned to him at his release from Slabside he assumed it was one last parting shot from the guards, none of whom had been any fan of his. Felicity glanced up at him with tears shining in her eyes before focusing on slipping the ring onto his finger. 

When it was back in place she opened her other hand to reveal her smaller matching band. Oliver paused long enough to swipe the tears from his face with an embarrassed chuckle, then plucked the ring from her hand and guided it onto her finger. 

“They told me it was better if I looked like a single mom, so I couldn’t wear it.” She sounded so heartbroken, what little composure Oliver had left cracked.

But before he could fall completely apart she was in his arms, pushing up on her toes and reaching for his neck. He caught her up and lifted her free of the floor, burying his face in her hair and holding on for dear life. 

“I’m glue, remember,” she whispered next to his ear. He nodded agreement, unable to speak, just breathing her in. 

“We still need to talk about your Bratva plan,” she reminded him softly. Oliver was temporarily overwhelmed with the feel of her but he managed to hum a yes, pulling his head back far enough to place a kiss on her forehead. 

“Tonight,” he promised in a growly whisper.

The back door slammed, heralding William’s return home from his friend’s; Felicity wriggled against Oliver and he released her in time to get her feet back on the floor before they could embarrass their son. But instead of letting go to turn around she whispered one more thing:

“I think I have everything here to make Monte Cristo's.”


	8. Chapter 8

November 2018

“Why didn’t we always do computer searches this way?”

Oliver was reclining back against the headboard with a very naked Felicity Smoak in his lap. He didn’t have a stitch on either. 

Felicity snorted. “John Diggle, that’s why.”

She leaned forward to open a new tab and Oliver traced a feather-light pattern down her spine with a shrug.

“Dig doesn’t scare me.”

“Whatever. If he’d ever caught us having bunker sex he would’ve snapped you in half.”

Oliver shifted forward to follow her and placed a trail of kisses along her shoulder. 

“Oliver...”

“Twenty minutes, then we’ll get back to work.”

Felicity huffed. “You said that the last time and we lost an hour and a half of productivity.”

When he didn’t answer she glanced back over her shoulder at him and caught one of his very rare grins.

“You can’t possibly expect me to apologize for that.”

“Oliver, it’s practically the middle of the afternoon! Contrary to popular belief, I did not call in sick to work today so we could have sex.”

He was still grinning, with those impossibly perfect teeth, and the scruff, and the hair that was—well, at the moment still too short for grabbing—but definitely sexy. She gave him her best martyred sigh and turned around to crawl back into his lap.

“Alright, but you’re going to have to feed me a fantastic dinner tonight. I’m burning an excessive amount of calories today.”

“Best dinner ever,” he promised, punctuating each word with a kiss. 

Things had just gotten serious when the laptop pinged with a discovery. Felicity deflected Oliver’s attempt to shove it off the bed, twisting at a nearly impossible angle to get a look at the read out despite his grabby hands and growl of disapproval. 

“We have a hit on Anatoly’s whereabouts,” Felicity panted, stretching for the keyboard. She managed to open the file before Oliver trapped her hands above her head and redoubled his efforts. Felicity gasped a moan and arched her back.

“You’re right. It can wait. Oh...god...”

———————————————————————

The laptop, ultimately, did not manage to stay on the bed; Felicity flopped onto her stomach and dangled over the edge to get a look.

“Well, It’s still working,” she grumbled; adorably, Oliver thought. “And you’re never gonna believe where he is.”

Oliver draped himself over the back of her, careful to hold his own weight, and peeked around her head at the screen. 

“Las Vegas?”

“Yup. Convenient.”

“How so,” he rumbled.

“Because I know Vegas like the back of my hand. Getting around will be a cinch.”

Felicity must have sensed the sudden uneasiness in his silence, because she pushed her rump against him with a warning “Oliver...”; he lifted enough for her to squirm her way back onto the bed and turn over on her back. Upon seeing the determined look on her face he backpedaled off her and sat on his knees with a frown.

“Felicity—“

“NO, Oliver. You are not leaving me behind.”

He started to say her name again as an exasperated sigh, but instead he pulled his lips in and dropped his head. In frustration or defeat, she couldn’t tell. 

“It’s Anatoly, Felicity. It might get—“

“Dangerous? Yes, it might. So?”

“William—“

“Will be fine here for a couple of days. He has ARGUS, and Duncan, and Barry. It’s only 1.8 seconds from their place to here.”

Oliver’s head raised to give her a quizzical look and she shot him a tight smile.

“We timed him.”

They stared each other down for the span of three breaths, and then he sighed again, won over. Felicity scrambled off the bed without waiting for verbal confirmation and disappeared into the bathroom. 

———————————————————————

“Hey. The goatee? I think I like it.”

She sounded a bit unsure, but upbeat all the same. Making the best of it, Oliver guessed.

“It’ll grow out,” he reminded her in a growl, quite pleased with the look himself. He wasn’t sure how recognizable he’d be away from the northwest coast, but Las Vegas hosted enough of the underworld to give him pause; a bit of a disguise wouldn’t hurt.

Felicity looked like a million bucks, he thought, glancing down at her for maybe the hundredth time since they’d left their hotel. Her dress was short and floaty and showed off an amazing amount of skin. He hoped they found Anatoly with enough time to enjoy each other before they had to leave. 

“You’re sure this was the hotel,” he muttered, his eyes roaming the casino floor as they strolled through the room.

Felicity nodded, hanging on to his arm and trying very hard to look like a tourist. “Absolutely. He has to be here...some...where...”

Oliver dropped his gaze to his wife’s face and then back to the crowded room, trying to see what had stopped her in her tracks.

“FELICITY MEGAN SMOAK, WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR HAIR?!”

“Oh. Frack.”

Donna Smoak was marching toward them wearing six-inch platform heels, a painted-on dress, and an expression of complete disbelief. Oliver’s eyes darted left and right, sure security would be bearing down on them any minute. 

“I thought you said there was no way your mother would be in the Grand—“

“There IS no way, Oliver,” Felicity hissed back. “After that incident in 1998 she swore never to darken their door. Not to mention their restraining order—Hi, Mom...” She was able to fire that much off at her husband before being pulled into a vice-like hug by her mother. Her eyes bugged and for a second Oliver thought he might need to intervene.

“I’m serious, Felicity. What did you do?!” Donna seemed to notice for the first time that her daughter wasn’t alone. Her mouth opened to—no doubt—let out a shriek of recognition at seeing her son-in-law out of prison, but Oliver managed to get ahold of her, extract her from Felicity, and pull her against him in a hug. 

“Please don’t make a scene, Donna,” he begged quietly, a hand at the back of her head and a fake smile plastered on his face. His eyes flicked to Felicity, who was biting her lip and looking back at him in terror.

“Oliver...how—“ Donna managed to keep it down to a stage whisper; Oliver called it a win. He let her out of his embrace and took both of her hands in his. 

“Let’s go somewhere quiet where we can explain everything—“

“Oh! Sure, yeah, of COURSE!” Donna smoothed her blonde locks as she switched gears mentally. Her hands fell to tug her dress down before she looked around like she’d forgotten something. “Just a minute!”

She minced back to the closest roulette table and Felicity took a step closer to Oliver, ready to grab him and run for the hills. They watched her mother tug on the arm of a gentleman whose back was to them; Donna flashed them a huge smile just as the man turned around. 

“Holy shit,” Oliver murmured, before being pulled sideways rather violently when Felicity grabbed his arm. 

Anatoly Knyazev looked mildly surprised and then supremely amused to see them. He offered Donna his arm and the two of them crossed the room. 

“When she told me she was dating a Foreigner, I assumed she meant the band,” Felicity breathed, her eyes wide and staring. 

Oliver blew out a huge sigh through his nose and urged her to step forward with him. “Well, at least we found him.”

———————————————————————-

Anatoly’s suite wasn’t extravagant, but it was on the house. Oliver accepted a glass of vodka he didn’t want and took a seat. On the far side of the room Felicity was handling Donna but throwing him looks that were equal parts concerned and annoyed; they had to keep her mother out of this, but she really wanted to be a part of his conversation with Anatoly. Or rather, Sergei.

“I had to change name—temporarily—to avoid Diaz,” the Russian shrugged, leaning back into the couch and crossing one leg at the knee. Oliver knocked back his drink and stared at the floor between his feet. “Is that why you’re here,” he continued, “because of Diaz?”

Oliver lifted his head. “I have to get him.”

A brief smile reshaped Anatoly’s mouth and his head tipped to the side. “How was prison?”

When Oliver didn’t answer, Anatoly grinned.

“What makes you think this time you can get him?”

“I have a plan,” Oliver ground out, “but I need your help.” There was a sizable pause as he watched Anatoly stare back at him, waiting too. “I need the Bratva.”

“Oliver, we have been over this. I am nothing in Bratva. Am outcast.” He waved his drink around expressively, as if his four hundred dollar a night suite would prove his point. 

Oliver’s eyes flicked to his wife across the room; she was enduring Donna’s fussing over the color of her hair, if he was interpreting their actions correctly. 

“I’ve actually been out of prison since the summer, Anatoly,” he said softly; the man’s brows knit into a frown. “I’ve been all over the world, working for Agent Watson on the US government’s behalf. I’ve made a lot of contacts in my travels, and I think I can use them...” he trailed off to take a deep breath, “...to put you back at the top of the Bratva.”

Anatoly slowly sat forward and put both feet on the floor.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Anatoly, if I give you back the Bratva, you can loan it to me to take Star City back from Diaz.”

“You and what army will do this,” he asked, both incredulous and hopeful.

“Just me.”

“And me.” The determination in Felicity’s voice brought both men up short. She was standing much closer to the seating area all of a sudden; Oliver’s eyes immediately searched for Donna, his heart rate kicking up at the thought of his mother-in-law overhearing their plans, but Felicity hooked a thumb over her shoulder. 

“She’s in the bedroom, changing into a new dress she wants to show me.”

Oliver stared at her, unwilling to have this conversation in present company, but not sure how to get out of it gracefully either.

“Felicity...” he warned. She stared back at him for a full five seconds—a part of his brain actually counted—before turning to look at Anatoly.

“And me,” she repeated.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, my darlings...

November 2018

The trip home from Vegas was, as often as not, silent. What more was there to say when the husband refused to agree and the wife refused to give in? 

Oliver’s fingers massaged the headache he had decided was permanent; no attempts at intervention had managed to convince it to leave. Felicity was beside him yet a million miles away, pulled into herself or keeping him out, he couldn’t decide. Steeling herself to live without him again, either way.

He had thought getting out of prison, going back to his family, was worth any price he had been asked to pay. He never dreamed the price might include his marriage.

“Maybe it isn’t worth it,” he mumbled, fingers sliding down so he could rub his over-tired eyes. “Fuck it. Let Diaz have Star City.”

Felicity turned her head toward him, LOOKED at him, for the first time in hours.

“We can’t let him win, Oliver.”

His eyes flicked to her, hurt and tired. “I’d rather lose the city than you.”

Felicity sighed; her hand crept out of her lap and her fingers found his.

“I know you think leaving me behind will keep me safe.” She shook her head ruefully and chuckled without humor. “I work in a US public school. I’m probably way safer behind enemy lines with you.”

She surprised a huffed laugh out of him. “Thanks. That makes me feel much better.”

Felicity gave him a soft smile and squeezed his fingers. “Oliver, look at me.” She waited for his gaze to lock with hers. “When my time comes, I don’t want to look back over my life and only have all the times we said goodbye.”

The corners of his mouth lifted in a sad but understanding smile. 

“You said it will only take a week or two,” she pushed on, feeling her argument finally working. “Take me with you.”

————————————————————-

They sat up late into the night strategizing with Duncan over Felicity’s kitchen table. Smoak Technologies was in its formative stage; two weeks away from it might make the difference between success and failure. 

Felicity sighed into her high-test coffee. “But Star City can’t afford to wait two weeks either,” she argued tiredly. 

“You’ve worked so hard.” Oliver’s growl was so soft and tender it made Duncan tip his head in wonder. He had of course heard all about the amazing Mr Queen over the months he’d known Felicity, but now he was seeing all those wonderful things in person; he was finding it hard not to fall for the man himself. 

“I can do a bit of shepherding for you, but at some point we begin to reach a conflict of interest...” Duncan trailed off with a shrug. 

“What about Curtis,” Oliver prompted, forearms on the table and hands clasped. 

Felicity traced a pattern on the table with her thumbnail. “I just got him to agree to step away.” She lifted her shoulders in an extended shrug. “But I guess it couldn’t hurt to ask him to come oversee the beginning of the manufacturing process. He could stay here.”

Oliver nodded. “I’m calling Raisa in the morning.” Felicity dropped a hand onto his and caught his eye.

“We didn’t leave her behind, you know. It was just...so much, the relocation. The name changes. It was easier—more fair—to just move the two of us.”

They stared at each other, drawn together in silent understanding; watching them exist momentarily in their own universe made Duncan shiver.

“Do you have transportation,” he asked of them, breaking the spell that held them together. Oliver’s eyes dropped to the table in thought. 

“Watson’s given me what funding she could, to get started.” He paused and glanced at Felicity. “It wasn’t meant to be enough to cover two.”

“I can probably swing one more trip to London on the company, if that will help.”

Felicity smiled in relief at Duncan; Oliver almost regretted shadowing the man for a week like he was a criminal. Almost.

“Appreciate it,” he said softly.

—————————————————————

Felicity gave immediate notice at the school, citing her new business venture; Bill the janitor would stay on as William’s security detail. Raisa moved in—with Curtis to follow—and a day after that they were ready to leave. 

They kept William home from school for the morning to wring out a little more time with him. He stayed glued to Felicity’s side, this child who had always been reserved in his affection; she was practically falling over him by the time they placed their bags at the door. The sight brought a lump to Oliver’s throat. 

William hugged him hard, when the time came. It was both a blessing and a curse to be back in his son’s life—after thinking he might never see him again—but have to leave again so soon. 

“I’m counting on you to help Raisa with Thanksgiving,” Oliver ordered huskily, closer to tears than he wanted to show. “We’ll be hungry when we get back.”

His son nodded at the floor, affected too.

Felicity grabbed William and pulled him close. “Keep up your school work. Raisa already knows you only get video games on the weekends, so don’t try anything funny.”  
Her voice was warm and a little teary, but she seemed to be holding it together better than her husband.

The sight of the two of them—gangly teenager and petite step-mother—overwhelmed Oliver. He glanced down and away, his lips pulled in to keep them from trembling; his eye caught Raisa’s gaze and she smiled softly.

Behind them, outside on the porch with the collar of his coat turned up, Duncan waited to take them to the airport, a polite Englishman giving them their privacy. 

“It’s time,” Oliver whispered.

Felicity started to pull away, but William grabbed after her at the last second, stretching his long thin arms out to bring his dad into the group hug.

“Take care of each other,” he murmured in his deepening voice, holding on fiercely for just a second before releasing his parents.

———————————————————-

Felicity was determined to learn from her mistakes on the last overnight flight; there would be no gabbing this time. She snuggled into Oliver’s side, a blanket covering them both. His eyes were already closed. 

“London,” she murmured, thinking back over her regret at being there without her husband the last time she visited—except he had been there after all. The thought made her shake her head in wonder. “Where else are we going,” she asked, her chin on his shoulder.

“France, for one. Briefly.”

“Ooo, Paris.” Felicity sighed. “I feel like we’re finally getting a Honeymoon.” Felicity’s head tilted in surprise. “Do you even speak French?”

“Vous êtes mon toujours,” he whispered without opening his eyes. Felicity grinned, even though she didn’t understand. “It’s Toulouse,” he continued, “not Paris, I’m afraid. Then Madrid. But first, sleep.” There was a faint smile on his lips.

“Anywhere is fine. As long as we’re together.” Felicity wiggled against him to situate herself. “And home by Thanksgiving.”

Oliver nodded faintly in agreement, well on his way to sleep.

 

December 2018

Even with all the candles the church was only dimly lit. One night from now the pews would be filled with the Midnight Mass crowd, but tonight he was basically alone.

Alone.

Oliver stared down at his clasped hands, willing a smaller feminine one to appear inside them, as if he could conjure her from thin air. So far no searching, inquiring, or wishing could bring him any answers. Or peace. 

Oliver had never been anything close to religious; it was never said but always implied that the Queen family had no need of God as long as they had money. Growing up, the only rich person he had known who ever went to church was Rebecca Merlyn. She would sometimes take Tommy—and his ever-present sidekick Ollie—with her to Mass.

Despite the impressiveness of the architecture, the mood lighting, and the air of mystery, nothing about the experience really stuck in his memory except for the story of the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. The picture in his head of Christ’s celestial sleight-of-hand was still as vivid as the day he first heard the story. Cold comfort now, but the only Biblical thing he could bring to mind under current circumstances. 

He was here because he had exhausted every other avenue while waiting for reinforcements to arrive. Oliver bent forward until he thought his forehead might touch his knees, the need to shed tears overwhelming him. He swallowed hard and pushed all the emotions away, damming them up behind his eyes. 

“Please,” he whispered, to whatever otherworldly being was in charge of taking down messages for God. He raised his head to blink, dry-eyed but ravaged, at the rafters.

“Please let me find her.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh my lovelies, sorry for the delay. I fell head over heels for another story idea, and it was impossible to accomplish anything else until it was complete. It’s called Desperation Club: Give it a go.  
> As always, love to hear from you!

November 2018

Oliver shadowed her to Whitsom Mobility’s London office just after lunch and then ducked into a corner shop to wait. Despite the protective custody, Felicity—thanks to a dizzying amount of LLCs—had been able to start up the fledgling Smoak Technologies under her own name; she could travel freely throughout the UK as Felicity Smoak.

He, on the other hand, was another story entirely. 

The shop turned out to be a tiny book store; Oliver eyed the floor-to-ceiling shelves and the tables crowded with paperbacks the way all non-book people regard such things: With suspicion. He snagged a book with the word “Flash” on it and took over a time-worn leather armchair, conveniently placed by the front window, to wait. 

He discovered right away that the book in his hands was not, in fact, about his red-suited friend from Central City, but a rather cowardly and misogynistic Englishman named Harry Flashman. Oliver might have given up on it immediately if not for the first line in the book; he read, “If I had been the hero everyone thought I was” and immediately needed to know more. What followed was a bewildering account of nineteenth century military shenanigans, mistaken identity, and sex. And that was only the first chapter. 

A tap on the window two hours later brought him up with a start; Felicity was peeking through the window, hands cupped against either side of her face with a grin. Her ponytail flipped behind her as she turned and skipped to the door. Oliver shook his head violently to get his head together, pissed that he’d allowed himself to lose focus so badly. 

He rose to his feet as she entered the shop, practically dancing on her toes as she took in the scenery. Felicity loved books almost as much as she loved computers; her smile was a mile wide. 

“Hey you,” she greeted him happily. She twisted back and forth at the waist in front of him, her red coat swinging around her and her eyes gleaming. “Whatcha readin’, fella?”

Oliver looked down at the book in his hands, suddenly embarrassed. “Oh, um, it’s just...I don’t know. A book.”

Felicity’s nose crinkled adorably. “I think Oliver Queen likes a book,” she teased.

“I do not, I was just...killing time.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” He couldn’t decide whether to be mad or smile.

“Then how come you’re still saving your place?” Her eyes dropped dramatically to the middle finger of his right hand, sandwiched inside the book. Oliver huffed a self-conscious laugh. 

“Okay, you win. It’s kind of fu—interesting.”

Felicity poked his chest gently with her finger. “You almost said “fun” there, didn’t you.” She gasped. “You did!”

Before he could protest further she grabbed the book from his hand—careful not to lose his place—and practically danced her way to the till. 

Twenty minutes—and a couple of books for herself—later they were strolling through the streets of London hand in hand, the shopping bag swinging on Felicity’s far side.

“How was work,” he asked with a soft squeeze of her hand. This felt good, the reprieve from their crazy, dangerous life. Give me 24 hours, he prayed to no one. A day to pretend that we are normal.

They crossed street after street as they talked, stopping to window shop, sightsee, and eventually grab a coffee. Pub fare for dinner, a nighttime wander through a park, her arm through his; a long memorable night in bed.

They were up bright and early the next morning with their bags packed, waiting on a bus station bench in front of the empty bay where their bus to France would roll up any minute. 

“So, no plane to Toulouse?”

Oliver stared at the ground between his feet; Felicity’s arm was draped through his and she leaned close in the chilly November air, waiting for him to answer.

“Tour buses traveling within the European Union typically get through borders without passport checks. We’ll get to France via Eurotunnel and ditch the tour group outside Paris.”

Felicity’s head tilted in confusion. “Won’t they freak out when we’re suddenly not with the group anymore?”

Oliver looked up at her from under his lashes. “Once you erase us off the computer’s manifest? No.” He shrugged. “They’ll spend some time trying to reconcile their paperwork, but we’ll be long gone. Mrs Winchester.”

Oliver pulled two British passports from his jacket pocket and fanned them apart with his fingers. Felicity palmed the top one and opened it to the picture page.

“Good thing I visited that salon yesterday morning,” she noted with a glance up at him and a grin. Oliver nodded agreement; she’d spent a small fortune returning to her trademark blonde, but it was kind of necessary considering Lyla only had older photos of Felicity to use on all the fake passports. And he was happy to see it again, anyway. 

“How’s your British accent,” he inquired in his Constantine impression—the one that turned Felicity to jelly inside. 

“Fine, as long as I can call you Walter.” Her eyes sparkled; she was close to a fit of giggles. 

They bantered back and forth, dropping their ‘r’s and changing the emphasis in their phrases until they were both laughing. Oliver’s face finally resumed a neutral expression as other travelers began to fill the space around them, waiting for the same bus or another, it was hard to say. 

With ten minutes to go until departure their bus rumbled into its bay and they shuffled aboard, blending in as best they could and trying to be as boring as possible. 

They made it to France without a hitch. 

 

December 2018

No men had come back since that first time. A woman with greasy hair and an enormous sweater slunk into the room and set a bowl of something and a glass of water on the floor by her knee, then retreated to the far wall and crouched against it. The sweater was enormous because she stretched it over her knees and down to the floor every time she sat that way.

The glass was filthy, or maybe the water inside it was; either way it sat untouched. Her stomach betrayed her and growled, but it also swooped and fell, flipping over itself at the sight—and eventually the smell—of the bowl’s contents. There was danger in refusing to eat for too long, but also danger in eating anything they offered. Felicity chose to wait. 

 

November 2018

“Fe-li-city...”

“Oliver, you said we were doing this together.”

“We are doing this together. We are here, together. In France.” 

She shot him a look. He matched it.

“Okay. How much French do you know?”

Felicity ground her teeth at his question and cocked out a hip in frustration, silent. He lifted one elegant eyebrow.

“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir,” she muttered with an eye roll. 

“That’s what I thought.” Oliver almost smiled as he moved around her to reach for the door knob. 

“I don’t have to talk.”

“You don’t have to GO.” He turned with his hand on the knob and beckoned her to him. “I have a tracker. You can be Overwatch from this lovely hotel room.”

Felicity stepped to him and wrapped her arms around his waist so he could leave a kiss against her forehead.

“It’s not a great tracker,” she muttered, trying to hold on to her disappointment even though he was being excessively charming.

Oliver’s head tipped in acquiescence. Watson had offered to put a GPS chip back in him, with an evil smirk. The pair of ARGUS cast-offs—one for each of them, hidden in their clothing—was the best Lyla could do on short notice. 

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he promised. Felicity let go and he turned again for the door.

“Oliver?”

He paused and hummed softly. 

“Is this...a killing job?”

His head swiveled to his wife and he stared at her for a long moment.

“Not if I can help it.”

Felicity nodded as she reached out to close and lock the door behind him. 

 

December 2018

Lyla’s hands shook for many minutes after the call ended. The raw fear in his voice had rattled her more than she cared to admit. More than the thought of the damage he might’ve already caused in what must have been a frantic, desperate search for her. 

Oliver Queen would burn down the world looking for his wife, and in the current political climate that could be very very dangerous.

She made the calls, to arrange transportation, and to find emergency care for JJ. And then she called her husband, and that’s when the shakes came back. Because she remembered; she remembered the cold, and the hunger, and the fear. 

“Johnny,” she said, without preamble. “We have to go.” Lyla exhaled a shaky breath. “It’s Felicity.”

 

November 2018

Monsieur LaMonde did indeed remember the handsome stranger from a few months before, and after very little persuasion was only too willing to cooperate. He set up the meeting in a matter of minutes, ushering the man into a dingy corridor and down the hall to the last door on the left before slipping away at the first opportunity. 

There was death in the air, and Monsieur LaMonde did not linger around death.

——————————————————————

Oliver slipped back into their room well after midnight, the promise of a new scar on his knuckles and another name committed to his memory; a name he would need upon their return to Russia. 

He went directly to the tiny washroom and cleaned up in the sink before padding silently to the bed and climbing in as gently as possible, pulling Felicity’s slumbering body against his and smothering his guilt in her wavy blonde hair.


	11. Chapter 11

November 2018

It took a day to get to Madrid, by bus and by train; a good opportunity to nap, and to cuddle, and to catch up on the day-to-days of life that never seemed to stop, even for former superhero vigilantes recently released from prison. Oliver splurged on a hotel in the city, a room with a view of the Royal Palace. 

It was early evening before they were situated, cleaned up and a bit hungry. Oliver pulled Felicity to him and spent a good minute kissing her. 

“I have to take care of this tonight. We’re running short on time. Stay here, take a nap, and when I get back we’ll go to dinner.”

Felicity, still held tight in his arms and a bit giddy from all the kissing, furrowed her brow and tipped her head at him.

“Will anything even be open that late?”

His brows twitched up and he winked. “You’ll see.”

Felicity watched him leave the hotel from their window, then crawled under the duvet with a book; even though they’d done nothing but sit all day she was exhausted. She didn’t make it through two pages before she was asleep.

 

December 2018

The girl with the enormous sweater’s name was Rose. Roza, her parents had named her, until she’d seen Titanic as a little girl and fallen in love with Rose Dawson and had begged her mother for months after to allow her to shorten her name to match, with little success. 

When she was thirteen her class went on a school trip to Moscow. It took all night on the train, in a car filled with sleeping teens sprawled across the seats and on the floor. Rose’s friend Tatiana had brought her brand-new shoes, trainers her mother had saved months to give her for her birthday; she made a big show of taking them off and placing them carefully on the floor when they went to sleep. In the middle of the night men came through the car just before a station; they took the shoes belonging to Tatiana and all of Rose. 

The new girl, the blonde, was definitely not European. Rose pushed her dark hair off her own face to watch her more closely. She looked sick, and she shivered a lot; Rose had seen the beautiful coat she’d been wearing when they dragged her in, the coat Darya had won because Darya had seniority, and because she was mean. But even Darya hadn’t seen Rose’s hand sneak into the pockets to explore, and no one had noticed her come away with the photo strip, the series of pictures of the blonde girl with the very handsome man. They looked so happy.

 

November 2018

Felicity was sound asleep and didn’t feel the hand on her shoulder until it was shaking her to wakefulness. She finally stirred as weight on the mattress shifted it; her book slid to the floor with a soft thud.

“You look so happy I hate to wake you, but you need to eat,” he whispered, draping himself over the back of her and resting his chin on her shoulder.

“Mmff,” she groaned. “Think I drooled.”

Oliver chuckled and helped her clamber out from under the covers. The light had never been off, but she blinked rapidly all the same, trying to focus on the alarm clock. 

“It’s after 10 o’clock. Are you sure we’re going to find somewhere to eat?”

Oliver’s face morphed into a broad smile as he snagged her red trench coat and held it out for her. “Trust me.”

The scene on the street took Felicity’s breath away. There were people everywhere, strolling along the street, eating, talking, laughing, dancing. It felt like a weekend festival, but it was only Wednesday. Oliver fitted her arm under his and led her to a bustling restaurant nearby. They ate and drank and people-watched far into the night, and on the short walk back, inspired by the live music in the square, they stopped to slow dance under invisible stars. 

 

December 2018

Lyla had managed to get clearance for three of them to travel: Herself, Johnny, and a new recruit, a young IT expert named Brody who looked like he’d just been dropped into the lion enclosure without his clothes. She put him to work searching up surveillance video while they were still on the plane, needing to feel like she was doing something with all that wasted time in the air. Beside her, at the window, her husband looked out at the endless night and willed the plane to go faster. 

Though it held little meaning at 36,000 feet, Lyla waited for her watch to read midnight before quietly wishing both of them a Happy New Year. 

 

November 2018

“Where to next,” Felicity asked through an enormous yawn, snuggled against his body and tucked safely under his arm. He had one leg stuck out from under the duvet, already hot although they’d just climbed into bed and shut off the light. His fingers drummed softly against the back of her hand as it rested against his chest. 

“Sicily, very briefly. Then Ukraine.” Oliver’s brow furrowed in thought, though she didn’t see it. “Ukraine’s where we pull all the threads together and then wait for Anatoly.”

“How’s he getting to Russia,” Felicity murmured sleepily, trying to stay awake long enough to hear the answer. 

Oliver yawned himself before answering. “Through Turkey, he said. He has a connection. We’ll meet...”

He tapered off his sentence, because Felicity was already asleep. 

————————————————————-

It was a regional flight to Sicily, to save time; their passports said they were Belgian. They had most of the day to explore Palermo and do a little shopping. Oliver insisted Felicity buy a heavier coat; November in Eastern Europe was no place for a lightweight trench. He stayed by her side as she shopped, keeping a hand on her at all times, feeling a tug of protectiveness. There wasn’t a lot of demand for them in this climate, but she finally found a thick wool coat of charcoal gray with a shawl collar and large cuffs, cut long; even longer on her short frame. 

On impulse—and despite his quiet reservations—Felicity bought a postcard to send to William. She didn’t write anything on it or sign their names, just addressed it to his pseudonym, knowing he would understand who it was from and why it was blank. 

“We’ll make it home before this postcard does,” Oliver pointed out as he tried and failed to look stern. She only grinned at him and affixed the stamp. 

Still feeling playful, she spotted a photo booth and dragged him inside, pulling the curtain behind his shoulders and plopping onto his lap. There was hardly time to consult, but they settled on a crazy face, a chaste kiss, and a happy smile for their three shots. Felicity admired the finished product and slipped the strip of photos into the pocket of the new coat draped over her arm as her husband led the way back to their hotel. 

Oliver lingered that evening, despite the tight timeline and the increasing pressure to finish and get on; they had a nice dinner, a leisurely hour to make love. He stood by the hotel room door and watched her, cleaned up and ready for bed, rosy with happiness and yawning, and could hardly make himself leave. 

“I’ll be watching,” Felicity advised, firing up her tablet and adjusting her earpiece. 

“I’ll be back soon,” he promised. 

————————————————————-

Everything felt off immediately. His contact for the meet up was shifty and sweating, and acted a little lost as he led the way through the winding back alley. Oliver kept his weight on the balls of his feet, ready for trouble. Slabside flashbacks threatened, and he wished fervently to have Diggle with him, at his back. If he didn’t need this final name so damn much he’d call it here and get the hell out. 

The first two he anticipated; the third snuck up on him while he was dealing with the others. 

Dig would’ve had that one, he thought, as his vision went black. 

—————————————————————

He came to in a chair, zip cuffed. The tracker was in one of his shoes, and he was still wearing both, so presumably Felicity knew where he was. A lot of good that would do at the moment. 

There was also a whole lot of blood. 

Oliver tipped his head either direction to ease the crick in his neck and check to see what was bleeding, exactly; everything was a dull ache at this point, so it was hard to tell. A trickle of warmth near his right eye told him it was a head wound—probably just a surface scratch—but those always bled like a son of a bitch. No immediate problem, unless it dripped into his eye. The walk back was going to be interesting, though. Oliver sighed, annoyed.

The cagey guide was gone, dismissed; your typical Sicilian mobster had taken his place, smooth and sneering, the movie version of a bad guy, in real life. He was flanked by his muscle. 

In less than a minute the muscle was dead, and the mobster was on the floor with Oliver’s forearm wrapped around his neck; the head wound was dripping onto his suit. 

“I need the name,” Oliver growled in Italian.

A little grunting and squirming from his prisoner, but otherwise silence. Oliver squeezed.

Panic bloomed in his eyes—along with a broken blood vessel—and Oliver knew he had him. He squeezed a bit more. The man nodded wildly, or as much as he could under the circumstances. The pressure abated and he gasped for air.

“Kovar,” The man spluttered in a wheeze.

Oliver shook his head, not impressed. “Kovar’s dead.”

The mobster coughed once as he likewise shook his head, steadier now that he thought he wasn’t going to die. “Not Konstantin. Suo figlio.” His son.

Oliver flexed again and the man’s feet scrabbled against the concrete floor. “His name,” Oliver pressed.

“Maximilian.” It was a strangled gasp. 

Oliver stared off into space a moment, considering, then decided to make that gasp his last. It didn’t take long. 

He cleaned up the best he could with nothing but the dead man’s coat to wipe away the blood, then touched base with Felicity; he didn’t think he’d been out long, but they might’ve moved him and he didn’t want to get himself lost trying to make it back to her. 

She was Overwatch-calm, which was a good sign; he warned her to be ready to go as soon as he made it back. Someone had obviously been on to him, which meant they had to get out tonight, especially now that he’d dropped bodies. Dammit.

 

December 2018

Rose spent as much time around the blonde as possible; she was a fascinating novelty. She had been treated differently since the beginning, not passed around amongst the kidnappers before being put to work. Nothing had been demanded of her, and no man had been allowed to touch her since Inga had laid eyes on her that first night and decreed that she must be saved, for him. Inga ran the place with an iron fist, so no one dared defy her.

Rose heard her name shouted from somewhere nearby and shivered. She had been good at English in school, before she’d been taken; she’d been working up the courage to try it out for days, but the yelling meant it was time to hit the streets. 

Tomorrow, she decided, standing and sidling toward the door. Tomorrow she would say hi to the blonde and try to communicate to her that she was special. 

Because she was going to belong to Maximilian Kovar.


	12. Chapter 12

November 2018

Oliver almost got them both shot in the Palermo Airport. They’d caught up faster than he’d anticipated, were in fact waiting for them to come through the main doors at Departures. Felicity was so good—God he loved her—keeping calm and keeping close. He might hear about it later, but in the moment she listened and followed his lead. 

What followed was a cat-and-mouse game across the city, an exhausting race on foot and public transportation as they tried to allude their pursuers. All major routes appeared to be cut off; they holed up in an alley long enough for Felicity to pull up maps of the area on her tablet. Oliver consulted over her shoulder and sighed with a shake of his head.

“We need to head west.” He pointed on her map. “Trapani.”

She glanced up at him but nodded and got to work on a plan. 

—————————————————————-

It took three hours, twice as long as it would normally, but this wasn’t as simple as renting a car or hopping on a bus. By the time they made Trapani they were tired, hungry, and irritable.

“We waiting them out here?” It was the first thing she’d said in nearly an hour. Oliver reached for her hand and held it lightly as he checked for traffic and crossed the street, winding his way toward the waterfront through back streets. 

“We’re getting out,” he corrected. Their pursuers would be waiting in Messina, the logical place to get back to the continent via the toe of Italy’s boot. They had the airports covered, so he was choosing option C and hoping they hadn’t even considered it.

“A boat,” Felicity asked then, as they hugged the side of a building and Oliver peeked around the corner to see if the coast was clear. He turned back and looked at her, dirty and exhausted. 

“We’re going to Tunisia.”

——————————————————————

“I’ve never been a stowaway before,” she breathed, almost cheerful now that they’d grabbed a little something to eat and cleaned up in a public restroom. Night had fallen and the breeze made her shiver, even scrunched as she was between Oliver and a stack of shipping containers. “Have you?”

A picture of the Amazo flashed in his head but he managed to contain his scowl. “Kind of,” he replied in his growl. He handed her their one remaining bag—they’d thrown most everything out and consolidated the essential items into a single duffel—and nodded to her. Then he stood and skirted around the shipping container until he could step out in full view of the stevedores, affecting a loud, drunken stagger in order to pull their focus so she could slip up the gangplank and hide herself onboard. 

They sent him on his way with shoves and jeers; Oliver stumbled around the corner, then jogged the perimeter of the building to come back to their starting point. Within five minutes he’d managed to smuggle himself on board and rejoin his wife and their belongings. 

“A European tour AND a Honeymoon cruise, Mr Queen? How romantic,” Felicity crooned, just above a whisper. Oliver huffed a silent laugh and threw an arm around her shoulders from their hiding spot in the hold.

“Stick with me kid,” he whispered back, strangely lighthearted, even with all the unexpected trouble.

January 2019

Rose crept into the blonde woman’s room with a gift for the new year; two of the girls had been moved out overnight, and in the ensuing scuffle over their meager abandoned belongings Rose had managed to come up with a quilted blanket. She had it clutched to her chest as she dropped to her knees and scooted forward carefully to the mattress where the woman lay curled into a ball on her side. This was it: She was going to use her English. They were going to be friends.

“Hello,” she said, tentative but clear. The woman’s eyelids tried to open, but they were crusty and red; only one eye could open all the way. Her nose was red too, from running, and her lips were horribly chapped. Rose draped the blanket across her shoulders and sat back on her heels to look over the woman’s pitiful state. Maximilian Kovar wouldn’t want her if she looked like this when he showed up. 

In a flash she was dashing down to the kitchen for a basin and hot water—warm water, at least—and the cleanest rag she could find. The walk back took longer because she didn’t want to spill, though she didn’t want to go too slowly and risk getting caught by Inga or Darya either. 

She made it back to her room without being seen and got to work wiping her face with the rag and warm water. By the time she was done the woman could open both eyes, and her face was clean and pink from the scrubbing. 

“Thank you,” she said in a croaky voice, dry and cracked, her voice thick; she probably had a sore throat, Rose decided. 

“You’re. Welcome,” Rose enunciated carefully, thrilled to be communicating with her finally. 

“Where am I,” the woman croaked; Rose smiled, because she knew this phrase too. Communicating their location stumped her for a moment, however. She finally settled on “Inga’s” as her explanation. 

“I need help,” she said then, suddenly more frantic now that she knew someone could understand her. Rose knew “help”, and she also knew trouble when she saw it; an hysterical woman asking for help escaping would mean nothing but bad things for both of them. 

“No, no. Stay,” she corrected carefully, reaching out for her hand and squeezing it gently. The woman gripped it tightly and looked up at her with feverish eyes. 

“I need Oliver,” she said harshly, desperately. Rose, suddenly scared of what she’d awakened in this woman with a little kindness, pulled away and scrambled for the door. As she slipped out the woman cried out “Please find Oliver.”

Rose skittered to her room and hid under the covers of her bed. 

November 2018

The sea and Felicity didn’t get along, that much was clear. It wasn’t a long crossing, but it was a rough one; their hiding place in the dark airless hold probably wasn’t helping either. Oliver took the risk of moving them once, trying to find a spot lower down in the center of the ship where the pitching and rolling would be less noticeable. They hadn’t been able to bring much in the way of food and water, so mostly he just held her and tried to get her to sleep. 

He dozed for a short time as well, startling to wakefulness as the hydraulics that opened the giant cargo hold doors came to life and the doors creaked and groaned in response. Oliver hoisted the bag onto his shoulder and picked his wife up in a bridal carry, whispering to her to be still and quiet. 

It was dark, thank god, and though giant spotlights illuminated the dock cranes, there were still plenty of shadows to hide their egress from the ship. 

Oliver splurged for a taxi to the closest hotel and checked them in under their British passport names, then put Felicity straight to bed. 

January 2019

Curiosity made Rose creep back into the woman’s room the next day. This time she would work harder to explain about Kovar coming soon to see her. 

“Hello.” More confident this time. Eager to hear the greeting back from her new friend. The woman managed to push her arms straight and lever herself up to sit with her arms wrapped around her legs.

“Rose,” she said, pointing to herself; she’d forgotten that part last time, the introductions. 

“Felicity,” the woman mumbled, not meeting her eyes at first, then looking up to search Rose’s desperately. “Oliver?” A hopeful question. 

Rose thought of the strip of photos—hidden away with her other treasures—of this woman with the very handsome man; that was Oliver, probably. Her husband? She shook her head in answer to the woman’s—Felicity’s—question. She hadn’t seen him in person, just the photo, had no idea where he might be or how she would even go about finding him. 

“Kovar,” Rose said instead. “Mister Kovar,” she corrected herself, because he was an important man. A benevolent man; Felicity had no idea how fortunate she was about to be. She watched her wrap an arm across her stomach, either hungry or nauseous, it was hard to tell. Rose jumped to her feet to get her some food, but when she came back with the bowl of soup Felicity turned positively green.

“No.” She gasped the word with a quick shake of her head before her hand pressed against her mouth, trying to keep herself from being sick. Rose tipped her head to the side; ah, yes. This looked familiar: What was the word?

“Baby,” she said knowingly, rubbing her own belly while nodding. It had happened twice to her since she’d been here, and she was only just seventeen; she knew the signs well.  
Felicity shook her head at first, confused, but then her eyes unfocused and Rose could tell she was counting, working out the date of her last period. All the girls here got that look at some point. Rose smiled and nodded, thrilled to be in on the secret. 

“Baby,” she said again, utterly pleased. 

Felicity, still staring at nothing, lowered herself very carefully back to the mattress and curled into a ball.


	13. Chapter 13

January 2019

The girl—the one who could speak a little English—was back, crouched near her shoulder, prodding her gently to get her attention. Felicity drew in a shaky breath, made her eyes focus on something other than the grimy floor tiles, and swallowed; her throat no longer burned when she did that, which meant the virus was finally leaving her system. 

She pushed herself into a sitting position and waited for the room to stop spinning because of her efforts. The girl, Rose, had a bowl of something and a funny little bag that might be chips; the colors didn’t match up with any brand Felicity knew, but there was clearly a potato printed on the outside. She started with those—because junk food—but also because the salt would hopefully settle her stomach.

Time was impossible to tell in the windowless room, but it had been several hours since the girl had suggested that Felicity’s sickness might be more than the virus, or travel fatigue, or really weird food poisoning from something she’d eaten a week ago. She’d spent those hours counting backward endlessly—cataloguing the time since her last period—at least until she got sick in Tunisia and lost track of the days Oliver had to suffer alongside her in their hotel room, his whole body strumming with fever and tension because they were desperately behind schedule, missing Thanksgiving, letting Diaz have Star City even longer.

Felicity’s stomach dropped, but not from morning sickness this time. (Did you really only get sick in the morning? She didn’t think that sounded likely, but then again her only parenting experience was with a tween, so what did she know?) She’d let her husband down, ruined the mission, and now he was out there looking for her, probably causing an international incident. Because of her. 

Because of...them?

“Rose,” she said, a thick croaking sound, not nice to hear. “How do I get out?”

November 2018

The fever began their first night in Tunisia; Oliver, as exhausted as he was, registered and reacted to the rise in her body temperature; he awoke in the darkness and reached out a hand to lay along a slim bare arm that radiated heat. 

His pulse quickened compulsively; Felicity had so rarely been sick in the years he’d known her, and they were not in a country where he could readily communicate their needs. That first night he had to settle for the generic pain killer they had brought with them and dampened bath towels to soothe her burning skin. 

The light of day brought no change, and now he could add his own hunger to the list of problems he had to tackle. The hotel offered breakfast, of a sort, and Oliver found that French worked nominally well as a form of communication. He left her long enough to find a chemist and collect anything he thought might help. 

By the middle of the afternoon he was down as well, hazy and feverish; a slow-but-building panic set in as he lay next to his sleeping wife. They had come to an agreement with Raisa that no news would have to mean good news, for the sake of William’s safety. Agent Watson had made it crystal clear that no help would be forthcoming, which left Lyla and ARGUS, a failsafe to be used only in the most desperate of circumstances. 

Days blurred together in their shared misery, although Felicity had enough sense of time to whimper “We missed Thanksgiving”; Oliver could only pat her arm faintly in consolation. 

The woman who cleaned the room took pity on them and brought them food, home-cooked meals full of flavor and spice; as far as Oliver could tell, her plan was to sweat the sickness out of them. Management beat on the door for payment; they compromised their safety and used Felicity’s credit card to cover the rest of their stay, as their cash reserve was dwindling. 

And then one morning Oliver opened his eyes to find Felicity up and about, washed and dressed and munching happily on a piece of fruit. Just the sight of her back to normal pushed him to eat and drink more, and by evening he was almost well himself.

He was shocked to learn it was the first day of December.

January 2019

Lyla thought it was probably the worst she had ever seen Oliver Queen. He looked battle-worn, haggard, with an almost fever-bright gleam of desperation in his eye that made her think of a caged animal, dangerous and unpredictable. 

The man was hanging by a thread. 

Johnny, an otherwise silent, solid mass at her back, made a noise deep in his chest and she knew he had contracted a bit of Oliver’s radiating concern; Felicity was just as much his girl, after all. Lyla, not demonstrative by nature, made an exception and pulled Oliver into a tight hug. He sort of sagged against her; she felt his torso shudder with pent-up emotion he didn’t dare let escape. She suspected there would be no end to it if he did. 

“We already have a lead,” she whispered against his ear as she felt her husband step closer and envelope both of them in his bear-like arms. Oliver gasped a sob and shook for maybe four seconds—it felt like an expression of relief—and then he straightened and pulled away from both of them.

Brody, the newbie, was somewhere behind Johnny, no doubt wondering what the hell he’d signed up for. Lyla motioned him forward. 

“We figured it would take an IT expert to find one. This is Brody.”

Oliver nodded absently; the who was inconsequential to the what. 

She nodded to the young agent, a prompt for him to share. Oliver folded his arms over his chest, expectant, and Brody cleared his throat. 

“We were able to access security cameras around the address you gave us. There was a raid on the hotel, the night your wife went missing,” he began, clearly nervous. 

“A raid,” Oliver repeated. Brody nodded and Lyla took a step closer to the vigilante, in case he reacted badly to the next words out of the agent’s mouth. 

“It looks like it was human traffickers,” he continued, confident at first, and then less-so as he registered the change in Oliver’s expression; his arms dropped to his sides and he shifted his weight, ready to move. Lyla hesitated a breath and then reached for his elbow, grounding him with a squeeze of her hand. 

“We think it’s unrelated to your mission. Just an unlucky break.”

“How many,” Oliver ground out, his eyes glittery and hard. He meant the number of women taken along with his wife, ripped out of their beds in the dark of night and dragged god-knows-where to be sold into slavery, sex or otherwise. 

“It looked like a half dozen or so. We have footage of them being loaded into the back of a van in the alley behind the hotel.”

“Felicity,” Oliver whispered, a question.

“There was a blonde. It could’ve been her,” Lyla confirmed oh-so gently, banking on Johnny to step in if Oliver REALLY reacted badly. He blew out two breaths, centering himself, and then nodded once. 

“I know where to start looking.”

December 2018

“We’re getting out,” Oliver decided, a day into Felicity’s recovery. He wasn’t 100% yet himself, but 75% would do. He sent the agreed-upon encrypted message to Anatoly, letting him know it was time to move, and they packed up, throwing their coats on to save precious space. Oliver carried their lone bag down the stairs, but once they hit the lobby Felicity took one look at his waxy face and tugged it away, hoisting it onto her shoulder with a look that told him to shut up and accept the help. 

The plan was to get to the airport and catch a flight to Ukraine with what little cash they had left; Anatoly would be able to provide for them as soon as they met up. In the meantime, they would have to use public transportation to get to the airport.

Gulls wheeled and screeched overhead as they approached the waterfront in search of a bus stop. Felicity wrinkled her nose at the general dock smelliness, and Oliver had to work to keep the noise and confusion from overwhelming his senses; they were forced to walk single-file through the crowds of stevedores, and eventually found themselves traversing the edge of the waterfront in order to stay out of the way.

Amid the other noises bombarding them a new sound caught Oliver’s attention, a disturbance up ahead that made his fingers twitch together in their old tell. 

“Oliver,” he heard Felicity say, an edge of panic in her voice, just before a man burst through the crowd and pelted toward them at full speed, attempting to outrun an angry mob behind him. Oliver, his head still light and buzzy from sickness, threw an arm out to shield Felicity, crowding her back a step as the escaping man made a sharp right into a side street and several of the dock workers around them decided to join the chase. 

In a split second of horror Oliver felt the jostle of large bodies behind him and heard a surprised squawk from his wife as the stevedores barreled past. He was turning back to Felicity when he heard the slap of her hands on the pavement and her grunt of pain. 

The duffel—knocked off her shoulder as she fell to the ground and holding everything they owned—fell into the water and immediately sank from sight.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My goal was to finish this spec fic before S7 began; looks like I have a week left with two, maybe three chapters to go.  
> Fingers crossed.

December 2018

Oliver dropped to his haunches and they stared into the inky, oily depths, both of them willing the bag to miraculously surface and float back to shore, but eventually he sighed and turned his attention to the condition of Felicity’s hands. 

“They’re fine, I’m fine,” she moaned sadly as she sat back onto her bottom in defeat and continued to stare at the water. “Everything’s gone. My tablet, my wallet, our phones...the passports,” she finished in a horrified whisper.

Maybe he was still lightheaded from sickness, but Oliver felt a curious lack of despair. “I have the cash,” he murmured, taking each of her hands to inspect gently, despite her assurances. “And we have each other.”

Felicity tipped her head and favored him with her “You’re a sap, Oliver Queen” look, but she couldn’t help perking up a bit herself. 

“We won’t get onto a commercial plane without passports, but we can still get there. Is there any way to get a message to Anatoly,” he asked softly. 

Felicity shook her head. “The encryption code was only on the tablet. I’d have to find a computer with a secure network...it would take time to recreate.” She sat in thought for a moment, and then blinked rapidly. “But with ten minutes on any network I could clue him in on our progress without anyone—“ her eyes lit mischievously—“even Fed Ex, being the wiser.”

Oliver hauled himself to his feet, careful not to give himself a head rush and fall in after the duffel, and helped his wife up. 

“I think our hotel had a business center.”

January 2019

“Oleever.” Rose tried the name out, tasted the word on her tongue, and watched Felicity’s eyes light up with hope. 

“Yes! Oliver. I need you to find him!” Then, “Find him,” slower, followed by a heartfelt “please.”

Rose thought of the photo strip in her back pocket, the photos she thought of as hers now; she had so little she could call her own, but this poor girl...she had NOTHING. She found her hand reaching behind her and came up with the creased photo paper, a little grubby now with handling. She held it out in offering. 

“Oh,” Felicity gasped a little moan, and tears streaked down her face as she took the photo strip with a shaking hand. “Where did you...” She smoothed the crease with her fingers lovingly, and Rose knew she’d done the right thing, befriending this girl and offering to help. 

Felicity finally seemed to remember she wasn’t alone and turned the pictures to point out the man. “Oliver,” she said clearly, pointing to his handsome face. “This is Oliver.”

There was a muffled yell from the end of the hall and Rose glanced away; they were waking everyone up, getting the evening shift shoved out the door. 

“I go,” Rose said sadly, thinking her sentence was missing a word, maybe, but not sure how to correct it. She was pushing to her feet when Felicity bit her lip and handed the photo strip back to her. 

“You take,” she said urgently. “Find Oliver.”

Rose didn’t know how to tell her that she didn’t dare leave her street corner, that the chances of her finding him were slim, so she simply patted Felicity’s arm and nodded. 

December 2018

The next several days were both incredibly hard and oddly fun. First to bribe their way onto a ferry to Genoa—a decision that cost them a chunk of their reserve cash, but made the trip far more pleasant than the last boat ride—then various bus or begged rides through Italy and Liechtenstein before they made it to the border with Germany. 

Along the way, Felicity managed to hop on a computer here and there and get word out to Anatoly under the guise of a package delivery tracker message: “Your item has left Bregenz”, and the like. He had no way to message back, but she felt confident he would at least have a rough idea what was going on. 

To pass the time, Oliver began telling Felicity about his time away that wasn’t on Lian Yu: The brief, lighthearted moments in Hong Kong with Maseo and Tatsu and Akio. How he learned to do his own laundry and pick up after himself because of Tatsu, and how grateful he was for her discipline. He told her his whole history with Anatoly, including the underground fight circuit, and his death wish at that point in his life. 

The days were hard; they were hungry and tired and often pushed to the ends of their endurance, but they were together, grateful, and, on the whole, happy.

January 2019

Rose had no luck the first night, though she studied every man that passed as carefully as possible. She returned to the house as the sun was coming up, tired and frustrated at her failure and dreading the look on her new friend’s face when she had to give her the news. 

She was just walking past the room Inga used as an office when she overheard a conversation she shouldn’t: Maximilian Kovar was coming to town—would be here in two days—and would want to see the new girl and decide if he liked her. Rose’s stomach dropped as she slunk on down the hall to her own room; if she was going to help Felicity by finding Oliver, it would have to be tomorrow. 

December 2018

Traveling through Germany became very tricky and time-consuming, mainly because German border guards were impossible to bribe. They had a bit better luck getting into Poland, and Felicity sent Anatoly package delivery updates every chance she got. Oliver marveled once again at how impossibly good she was with the bare minimum of both tech and bandwidth. 

Felicity was beginning to lose steam by the time they got to the outskirts of Krakow; it had been a week so far, this journey from Tunis, and as best they could figure it would be at least another twelve hours to their destination, and that was if they managed to find transportation straight through. Oliver suspected she might be coming down with something again, just by the way she hugged herself as they walked along the weed-choked shoulder of a major road out of the city, bound for the next town and hopefully another ride. 

There wasn’t much Oliver could do to take the strain off her; they had nothing for him to carry, and he was pretty sure he knew what her reaction would be if he offered to carry HER. He was just about to suggest they stop and rest when a dusty looking older BMW slowed ahead of them and pulled onto the shoulder. Oliver took a casual step in front of his wife and waited for the driver to either roll down a window or get out. 

He didn’t except EVERYONE in the car to get out. 

January 2019

Rose ran the increasingly wrinkly photo strip through her fingers before tucking it into the back pocket of her skin-tight cut-offs and stepping out into the darkening street. 

She had spent the day finding excuses not to go visit Felicity, because she couldn’t bear to see the fevered hopefulness in her face. Inga has spent some time cleaning their blonde hostage up to make her presentable for Mr Kovar’s visit; Rose had breathed a prayer the old battle axe wouldn’t figure out Felicity was pregnant; she had a sixth sense about those things. 

Rose clapped her hands together for warmth and started searching the crowds for Oliver.

December 2018

Four men in total emerged from the car, all with long black wool coats and somber faces. The shortest member of the group appeared to be the leader; Oliver shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet as they closed the distance between them, the short man in the lead. 

January 2019

Lyla was left behind in the hotel; Oliver couldn’t quite bring himself to say the word “Overwatch”, but that’s what she was. 

“It’s freezing out, Oliver,” she warned. “Come in and warm up at least.”

It was like talking to a brick wall over the comms, except with less response. Lyla huffed a sigh and massaged a headache at her temples. 

“Oliver...”

“Not yet,” came his gritted reply. 

December 2018

The short man stopped just shy of Oliver’s personal space; Felicity shifted feet behind him and he willed her to stay still and silent. 

The man’s gloved hand came forward in offering and hovered between them. Oliver’s eyes flicked down to it briefly. 

“Oleever Queen, yes?”

Oliver blinked once. 

“Anatoly Knyazev sends regards. You need ride?”

January 2019

Something made Rose look up from a moment of daydreaming and scan the faces passing her on the sidewalk; there. He was a broad-shouldered man, but those shoulders were hunched; maybe against the cold, maybe under some invisible weight. His hands were in his pockets and his face muffled inside the collar of his coat, but his eyes—his eyes were piercing and ice blue, and they never stopped moving as he pushed through the crowd. Looking for someone. 

Looking for Felicity. 

Rose’s huff of surprise produced a cloud of vapor as she slid into the mass of people and approached him from behind; she wasn’t allowed to go far, but she didn’t dare lose him now that she had a lead. She reached out a hand for his elbow, but quick as a snake his hand came out of his pocket and locked around her wrist, simultaneously pushing her back and wrenching her around his body until she was in front of him. 

“Stop following me,” he growled in very Americanized Russian; Rose gasped at the strength of his grip, trapping—but somehow not harming—her. 

For a second she was too afraid to speak: This wasn’t the smiling man in the photos. This man was deadly. But then she remembered what he must’ve gone through the past week, searching for her, worrying about her. 

“Ah-Oleever,” she forced out through chattering teeth, the chatter only partly from the cold. Immediately his eyes changed, morphed from anger to a kind of desperate, crazed hope, as if she’d just said the magic word to free the genie but the genie couldn’t quite trust his luck. 

Rose thought of the pictures, the proof she could show him that she was a friend, but he had the hand that could reach it in a fierce grip that could easily become a grip that bruised. 

“Please,” She tried in English, struggling against his hold, panicking and worried that the man who looked after the girls would see and cause a fuss. 

“Oleever, please,” she said again, and the shock of hearing his name again was enough to loosen his grip; Rose wrenched her hand free and went for her back pocket, pulling the wrinkled strip of photos out and holding it up for his bewildered eyes to see. 

He broke; that was the only way to describe it. The man’s jaw, held so hard before it could’ve been carved from granite, went slack, and he moaned a sound of despair and hope, relief and fear, all rolled together as his eyes filled and then spilled over with tears. 

“Where,” he choked out, first in English, then Russian. 

Rose nodded understanding and grabbed for his hand.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Household chores? What household chores? Phhhttttttt. I have a story to finish.

December 2018

They somehow all managed to squeeze into the BMW with Felicity curled up in his lap; Oliver wondered if these guys always traveled in fours or if that’s the number they thought they’d need against him. 

They drove about two hours—dusk fell as they traveled—before turning off the highway onto a long unpaved road. Felicity had fallen asleep almost immediately, which was good, but her fever seemed to have come back, which was not good at all. 

Oliver’s pulse quickened the longer they bumped and bounced over the terrible driveway; no good usually sat at the end of roads like this, and with Felicity’s dead weight on him he’d be almost powerless to stop what might be coming for them without hurting her.

The bumpy road curved one last time and then straightened itself to reveal a large gate and a guard with a machine gun unlocking it. Dogs he couldn’t see were barking in a frenzy; Felicity stirred on his lap and he reached up to lay his palm against her head. 

Everything in him was screaming to begin demanding answers in Russian, but he held his tongue and let them think he was completely unconcerned. He knew for a fact it made him appear more intimidating.

They rolled through the gate as the guard leaned down to peer at Oliver and his sleeping wife crammed into the backseat, but Oliver ignored him in favor of watching out the windshield. He saw the lights before the house came into view, a floodlit courtyard filled with vehicles and teeming with dogs. 

The house was huge; compound might’ve been a better word. Or maybe fortress. It was made of concrete, square and solid and ugly, with few windows and no curb appeal whatsoever. Still, Oliver looked at it and felt oddly at peace. The car stopped and a man in a long coat and a fur hat opened the door. For a brief panicked moment Oliver thought he would fall out of the car, as stuffed in as they had been, but the same man steadied his elbow with a hand and helped him stabilize as he stood with Felicity in his arms. 

Short Man led the way into the house; the dogs sniffed around them curiously but didn’t threaten. Oliver experienced a moment of shock as he stepped through the front door into the foyer and his feet landed on a rich Persian rug. A crystal chandelier big enough to sit in hung from the ceiling, and when he turned his head he caught his tired and dirty reflection in a giant gilded mirror. 

They crossed through the foyer on gleaming tiled floors to a formal sitting room anchored by a huge antique desk. A man in a patterned silk dressing gown sat there, hands clasped casually on the desktop. 

“Oleever Queen,” the man said—not too loud and not too soft—as he stood and moved around the desk. “Anatoly has told me many stories about you.” His face blossomed into a cheerful smile. “Maybe not all true, but always entertaining.”

Oliver allowed his face to relax to neutral, its default anyway, and nodded. 

“Sergei Godasokhov,” the man said then, introducing himself. “Anatoly has many men out looking for you, but,” his hands slapped his own chest merrily, “I find. Is good day.”

Oliver nodded again and shifted his weight; Felicity wasn’t heavy on a good day, but he’d hardly eaten all week; had eaten nothing in the last twelve-or-so hours. 

Sergei’s face changed from cheerful to concerned immediately and he motioned for Short Man. “Get them room and something to eat,” he ordered, then looked back at Oliver. “Rest now, Mr Queen. When you are ready my men will take you rest of way to meet Anatoly.”

Oliver thanked him in English and followed his guide without protest. 

January 2019

In his haze of emotions it took Oliver a minute to realize the girl was pretending he had just hired her; she tugged his hand again and he stepped into her personal space, caging her in against the side of a building as she leaned back against it.

“Where is Felicity,” he murmured in Russian, his face turned away from the street as he leaned in toward her scrawny neck. 

“Inside,” she said, sounding a little surprised that they could communicate in her native tongue. Her hands wandered up over his wool coat and settled around his waist. “They are keeping her for Mr Kovar.” Oliver’s head reared back in surprise at this and Rose’s hand shot up to grab the back of his neck and pull him close again. “No one has touched her,” she added, knowing he would be worried about that. 

She saw his expression relax a bit at the news, but tension still wound him tight; he reached up to tap his ear like a tv spy and then took another step closer and pressed their bodies together.

No wonder Felicity liked him so much, Rose thought with a little stab of jealousy. 

“Can you get me inside? To her?” He asked the questions urgently, then murmured something in a low growly voice in English that was too fast for Rose to catch. She shook her head no. 

“We don’t bring men there,” she said, beginning to wonder if he, like Felicity, would try to insist on going in anyway. Were all Americans this pushy?

“But it’s this building,” he confirmed, laying his palm against the stonework above her head and dipping his head closer. Rose nodded yes, quivering now with adrenaline and a little fear. 

“Where do we go,” he asked, meaning the two of them. Rose swallowed hard. 

“You have money?” He nodded. “Do not speak,” she warned him, then pushed against him so he’d let her move off the wall. The man they’d have to pass at the door would never believe that accent. 

Rose looped her arm through his and made a big show of strutting past a stamping and shivering Darya, who glared daggers at her in a way that promised swift and terrible retribution later. The building they used for work sat next door to where they lived; their clients paid the man at the door and then the girls could pick any room they liked. Rose went for one that only had a curtain across the doorway for privacy, but Oliver tugged her further down the hall to an empty room with an actual door. 

The room held only a bed with a mattress in a plastic cover—not romantic, but easy to clean. She sat on the edge and watched him pace like a panther in the narrow space, having a very intense conversation with whoever was in his ear. 

“Oliver,” Lyla was saying, somewhere between an order and a plea. “Don’t try to go in there without backup. You’ll just get her killed.”

“Then send me Dig, goddamn it. She’s—“ he trailed off, his eyes flicking to the girl sitting on the bed—“Kovar’s coming to get her.”

“Kovar?! Does he know who she is?” Oliver Queen’s wife, she meant. Oliver shook his head no as if she could see it. “No idea. Which is why we can’t wait. Lyla, she was...sick, when they took her. She—“

“Oliver.” Lyla’s voice cut through his spiral. “Focus. Can the girl get you in?” 

“Not as a client. I’m in the building next door.”

“What about a doctor,” she said suddenly. “If she’s sick, maybe I could get in there. Will the girl help?” Oliver stopped dead still and looked at Rose. 

He couldn’t see it, but Lyla was already shucking her jacket and grabbing her thinnest Kevlar vest.

December 2018

Felicity woke up in a huge bed under mounds of covers. She felt awful, but cozy all the same. 

“Oliver?” Her voice cracked and she realized her throat hurt. Sick again? Ugh. 

“Hey.” His weight shifted the edge of the mattress as his hand reached out to brush her hair away from her face. “How are you feeling?”

“Terrible. But if this is Heaven, it’s really nice.”

Oliver’s face split into a grin, though his eyes were still haunted with worry.

“The guys who picked us up are friends of Anatoly’s, out looking for us. They’ll take us the rest of the way, when you’re up to it.”

Felicity shook her head rapidly and immediately regretted it. “We don’t have time...we’re so far behind now...”

“Shhh,” he soothed, hiking up the bed closer to her. “Tomorrow, then. After a good night’s rest. Once we meet up with Anatoly it will only be another day or two until we can go home.”

Felicity sighed, which made her cough; it was not a good sound. 

“There’s food,” Oliver said suddenly, motioning across the large room. “Soup. It’s very good. Then a shower?”

She did manage to eat, and after Oliver helped her with the tricky faucet in the shower he stripped down and joined her, claiming a second rinse off couldn’t hurt. He held her close under the spray until the water began to cool. 

January 2019

Their hotel was a ten minute’s brisk walk from Oliver’s location. Lyla bit her lip, locked eyes with her husband, and put in the call with the US Army for reinforcements. As the head of a Top Secret government agency it was a card she only got to use once in her career, but they didn’t dare try to sneak out of the country with a sick woman on their own. 

Lyla mentally rolled her eyes: Oliver and Felicity had already proven just how many things could go wrong with one operation. 

“Okay,” she sighed, “once we extract her a med team will rendezvous with us to airlift her to Germany. We’ll go with Felicity, Oliver can finish up whatever he has to do with Anatoly.”

“You know Oliver won’t be happy with the idea of being separated from her,” Dig reminded her mildly. Lyla shrugged once.

“It’s the best I can do.”

Her husband’s giant arms uncrossed slowly—his ‘I still don’t agree but you’re the boss’ signal—and he nodded. 

“Then it’s time to go.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for some BAMF Lyla Michaels.  
> Love her.

December 2018

Despite a good night’s sleep, Felicity was still feverish and weak the next morning. Oliver brushed her hair back from her damp forehead and flashed her his Felicity smile.

“Another day won’t matter,” he started to say, but she waved him off and pushed a leg out from under the covers. 

“I miss my bed, I miss William, I DON’T want to miss Christmas the way we did Thanksgiving. Let’s just go.”

“But if you’re feeling bad—“

“Oliver, please. I need my clothes.”

——————————————————————

Sergei only sent Shorty and the driver with them for the rest of their trip. Felicity slept for most of it, slumped against Oliver’s shoulder or laying with her head in his lap. He would rouse her for rest stops, always trying to get her to eat, but besides the fever she began complaining of being queasy, probably from the car ride. 

He worried his bottom lip constantly and willed the BMW to go faster. 

January 2019

Brody hustled to fabricate Doctors Without Borders credentials for Lyla; he practically tripped himself up on his power cords in his haste to hand the lanyard bearing her picture off as she finished dressing. Hopefully the puffy coat would disguise the bullet-proof vest. 

She and John stayed in constant communication with Oliver, feeding him questions to ask Rose about the layout of the building and where exactly Felicity was hidden. 

“Are we gonna be able to get HER out,” Oliver muttered at one point, meaning Rose. 

“She can’t leave the country with us,” Lyla answered flatly. “But we can at least try to get her away from there, give her some money...” She trailed off, knowing that wasn’t a great answer. 

Oliver continued to pace the small room, his body snapping like a live wire with the knowledge that his wife was only steps away, maybe still sick...

He focused on Rose again. “Felicity. Is she well? Healthy?” 

Rose bit her lip and considered her answer. “She is better, but still weak. She is...” She trailed off without mentioning the pregnancy. It might be his baby, in which case it was not for her to reveal. Rose pulled her lips in and glanced away. 

He might’ve pressed further, but Lyla had his attention once again as he listened to her giving Brody instructions on being Overwatch. 

“Can you pull up schematics?”

Brody shrugged, apologetic. “For a building that old? Doubtful. Even if they exist, they won’t be digitized.”

“Better start hacking a satellite, then,” Lyla ordered; She and her husband watched their new recruit’s eyes go wide. 

“Am I allowed to DO that?”

Lyla glanced at John, who rolled his eyes, and she had to fight to keep from grinning. 

“You can when I give you permission.” She turned back as she was opening the door. “I need heat signatures on everybody in there.”

“Copy that,” Brody confirmed, cracking his knuckles dramatically and getting to work. 

December 2018

In all it was a fourteen hour trip, which they drove straight through; Oliver was so tired he couldn’t see straight, but even within the city limits they weren’t finished with their journey.

“You know where staying,” Shorty asked, about at the limits of his English; Oliver had never let on that he knew Russian, just in case someone said something interesting. 

“Someplace cheap,” he muttered, thinking of the scant few bills in his pocket. If Anatoly had known enough to send men out looking for them, surely he was on his way and could help them finish the trip and get home. Any place would do for one night. 

January 2019

They let him know they were five minutes out from the brothel; Oliver hurriedly untucked the tail of his shirt and raked his fingers through his hair until it stood on end. Then he looked at Rose. 

“Ready?”

She pushed to her feet with her arms wrapped across her stomach, suddenly terrified, but also determined to play her part. He reached for her hand and led the way out of the room. 

They parted at the entrance; Oliver went right and Rose went left, back to the house. She mumbled to the man at the door that she needed the toilet, and she did, but mostly from nerves. As Oliver had instructed via the earpiece voice, she hid herself away and counted to 100 before returning to the front hall. She stepped back outside into the brutal slap of icy wind and tugged on the doorman’s sleeve. 

“Please,” she begged loudly, “the girl. The girl for Kovar is sick. We need a doctor.”

As she suspected he pushed her away and followed it with a cuff to the ear, but she returned to his side and raised her voice even louder. 

“Please! Find a doctor!”

She caught sight of a woman peeling away from the crowd in her peripheral vision and doubled down on the tugging and begging. This is going to get me a black eye, she thought suddenly, but before his fist was even closed the woman was tapping her arm gently, pulling her back. 

“I am a doctor. You need help?”

She spoke in beautiful French. Rose couldn’t understand a word of it, of course, but Lyla flashed her badge at the doorman who shrugged, either dismissive or embarrassed at not understanding. He waved vaguely toward the entrance, apparently unconcerned. It was only a woman, after all.

Rose led the way. 

December 2018 

The third place they tried was finally within their meager budget; Oliver kept hoping Shorty would offer to pitch in, but he didn’t. Neither the hotel nor the neighborhood it squatted in looked particularly promising, but they were running out of options and it was nearing midnight. He made the decision and took the room. 

He turned up the collar on Felicity’s coat to give her some anonymity and led the way through the lobby to a worn and narrow stairway. Despite the late hour, the place was busy with noise and activity, all women and children, Oliver noted, maybe refugees. Non-threatening, at any rate. 

The room was dilapidated but fairly clean, and it had its own bath; Oliver pulled the thin blanket back to inspect the bed and pronounced it workable. He helped Felicity into it with her coat still on, then paused, his back against the wall, to watch her burrow under the covers with a little moan. 

Food. They needed something to eat. 

“Felicity, honey.” He leaned over her and stroked what little of her head was uncovered. “I’m going out, just for a minute, to find something to eat.” He might have to steal it, but he didn’t mention that part. “I’ll lock the door, okay?”

It took a second, but he finally got a muffled grunt in reply. 

“I love you,” he whispered before he straightened to go. 

January 2019

Rose led the way down the hall at almost a run, but despite the appeal of the idea Lyla kept her strides even and deliberate; she was here on an humanitarian mission, after all. 

The room was steps away—Rose was reaching out for the doorknob—when a harsh female voice called out from behind them. She didn’t understand the words, but Lyla watched Rose’s shoulders shoot to her ears; this was someone in authority, then. 

“Médecins Sans Frontières,” Lyla said loudly and clearly, turning back with the badge held high. It wasn’t clear that the woman understood French, but she definitely recognized the name. She frowned sternly, her eyes darting from Lyla to Rose a couple of times; Rose said something low and pleading to her and the woman finally nodded. 

Much to Lyla’s relief, she also made no move to follow.

December 2018

Felicity was miserable. Even with the absence of the car motion she still felt nauseous; food sounded both awful and fabulous, and she vaguely hoped he’d bring back some juice. She was glad she’d kept her coat on when she climbed into bed; Oliver the human furnace would be able to keep her warm the rest of the night.

The hotel room door giving way beneath someone’s foot sounded like an explosion. Felicity jerked in fear with a shriek; another crack of splintering wood echoed out in the hall, followed by a scream. The thin covers were whisked away as huge hands dragged at her, pulling her up and away from the bed before she could even suck a breath in to protest. 

A large meaty palm covered the entire lower part of her face and she was lifted into the air, barefoot and kicking. 

January 2019

The room was dark; Rose flipped the light switch and a little blond waif, huddled under a blanket on a mattress, groaned. Lyla gasped—enough of a sound to make Oliver speak up in her ear—and dropped to her knees next to the mattress. She reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. 

“Felicity? It’s Lyla. We’re here. We’re here to get you.”

The blonde head, roots beginning to show, lifted and she blinked slowly, clearly unable—or unwilling—to believe she was finally being rescued. 

“Oliver’s here. And John. They’re outside, waiting for my signal. Can you walk, sweetie?” 

Behind her, Rose shifted from foot to foot. 

“Lyla?” It came out all rough and scratchy, but Lyla grinned all the same. 

“It’s me. I’m here. Here to get you home.”

“Lyla...” There seemed to be something she wanted to say, but Lyla was already reaching under the blanket to catch her elbow and help her to her feet. Felicity swayed but stayed upright. 

“We are a go. Acknowledge.”

“Copy that,” Dig’s voice answered, dark and smooth and calm as anything. Like she’d just reminded him to get milk at the store. What a guy. 

Oliver’s ‘Copy’ came back clipped and urgent; not two seconds later she heard the first shots from the direction of the front door, her husband’s deep bellow echoing down the hall. Rose had explained the front entrance was the only way in or out; the back door had been sealed long before Rose’s time here, Inga reasoning that escape attempts were a bigger threat than fire. Lyla pulled Felicity against her side and glanced at Rose. 

“Stay close,” she advised in English, and if she didn’t exactly know the words, Rose understood the sentiment. 

The action in the hall was getting closer; Lyla listened to both what her ears were telling her and what she could hear through the comms: Her boys had the element of surprise in their favor, were making enough noise to sound like six people, and as such little resistance was being given. 

She heard thundering feet pass by in the hall just as John broke through in her ear. “Door is clear,” he confirmed, their cue to get out and run for the entrance.

“Brody, is the front clear?”

“Affirmative. Heat signals show everyone in your way is down.”

“Copy that.” And to the women on either side of her: “Here we go, ladies.”

The sounds of John and Oliver neutralizing the rest of the building—and, knowing Oliver, encouraging as many girls as possible to get out—floated behind them as they jogged toward the entrance. Those first shots might’ve drawn a crowd out on the street; Lyla needed to get them to the rendezvous point as quickly as possible.

“Brody, call in the cavalry,” she ordered. 

She could see the open door ahead—Felicity was doing great, all things considered—when the woman with the big voice from before stepped out of a room to their right with a gun in her hand. Lyla heard Rose squawk the name “Inga” at the same time Lyla pushed Felicity into the girl to catch, then dipped and spun to come up under the woman’s gun arm. One solid punch in the jaw was all it took to lay her out; the gun was in Lyla’s hand before the woman even hit the floor. 

Lyla reached an arm around Felicity’s waist and the three women stepped out into the frigid night. 

December 2018

The air was thick with screaming: Women, children, babies. The man carrying her down the stairs jostled her so badly she thought she might throw up; he shifted his grip to be able to trap her legs against his body and prevent her from kicking him any more, but he still managed to keep a hand over her mouth. He had most of her nose, too, and panic set in when she couldn’t pull in enough air. 

She was beginning to see stars by the time the cold night air hit them. The man’s shoes crunched on glass as he took the final steps toward a panel van and waited his turn to toss her into the back, nearly on top of the woman dumped in before her. 

Where they took the children, she had no idea. 

January 2019

The rendezvous point with the chopper was a green space down by the river, just a five minute walk from the brothel. Felicity hung between them and walked the best she could; at one point Lyla giggled harshly and staggered, passing them all off as drunk. 

It worked, and they were ignored. 

“Brody, you on your way?”

“Copy, enroute.”

They’d left the poor guy to pack up all their remaining gear at the hotel and bring it with him; her husband called it “character building”. Just when she began to wonder if her boys were finished with their job Oliver’s voice broke through into her ear, frantic. 

“Lyla, Felicity—“

“She’s fine, Oliver. I’ve got her. She’s walking on her own. Johnny, you need to haul ass.”

“Yes, ma’am,” her husband rumbled back. 

“Lyla, I need...”

Oliver was breathing hard, maybe running, maybe just recovering from everything. Lyla dragged Felicity around the corner of the last building to the green space and took a deep breath. 

Now for the hard part. 

“Oliver, you have to go. Contact Anatoly, get him here and finish this. Finish Diaz. Johnny and I will take care of Felicity.”

“Just let me—“

Her heart broke a little. “You can’t be around when the Army gets here, you know that. We’re flying her to a US base in Germany. They’ll take good care of her. We won’t leave her for a second, Oliver.”

Felicity’s head lifted just a little at the mention of his name. “Oliver?”

“Felicity?!” Lyla cringed at the strength of his voice in her ear; how he had heard her, Lyla would never know. She stopped them at a park bench and all three of them dropped onto it, spent. Lyla told Oliver to wait while she removed her own earpiece and helped Felicity fit it in place. 

“Oliver?” It was a gasp; she was hardly dressed in anything, and Lyla could clearly see her chest heaving with the effort to catch her breath. She could feel individual ribs beneath Felicity’s thin shirt. 

“Hey,” Oliver said, in the voice he only used for her. Too late to ask Brody to cut off John’s comm; he pretended not to listen as he jogged through the streets after leaving Oliver behind. 

Felicity, wrapped in a human blanket made of Rose and Lyla, began to cry. 

December 2018

He knew something was wrong as soon as he stepped back into the hotel lobby; the hubbub of women and children milling around had been replaced by an eerie silence. 

This was not a slumbering hotel, it was an empty one. 

Oliver took the stairs two at a time and was rounding the corner onto the second floor when he saw the first of the smashed-in doors; there was muffled crying from another room without any door left at all. Here was a woman’s shoe; an abandoned teddy bear lay face down on a stair step.

He thought his heart would burst out of his chest when he turned the corner to the third floor and saw the gaping hole where their door should be. The bed was empty, the covers ripped back; something huge and black and ravenous clawed its way up through his stomach into his heart, just like it had the day he watched his father put a gun to his own temple. 

Oliver’s vision tunneled and he had to reach out for the nearest wall to steady himself. He almost missed hearing the whimper.

“Felicity?!” The sound burst its way from his gut, a twisted and desperate thing, alive in its own way. The bathroom door was closed, and no one called his name in reply, but he flung himself at the handle anyway, slamming his shoulder into it in his haste and practically falling to the floor when it gave way. 

The person in the room shrieked in fear. 

“Felicity,” he was already saying, relief flooding his system, dampening the fear, because of course it would be her. Who else would be in their bathroom?

The string of reassurances poised on his tongue died in the making: The woman was dark skinned, shrouded in yards of fabric, scrunched into the tiny space between the toilet and the sink, wide-eyed and quivering in fear. 

Felicity was gone. 

January 2019

Oliver stopped to lean against the nearest building, weak with relief.

“Thought I’d lost you there,” he said softly, all gritty and gravelly, his prison souvenir. A year ago his team was breaking up around him and he was in danger of losing his best friend; all that seemed so petty and inconsequential after the last few weeks. 

“Where are you?” Felicity’s teeth were chattering so hard he could hardly understand her. Lyla let go of her long enough to shed her puffy coat and throw it around her shoulders. “Are you coming?”

Oliver gasped a moan of sadness. “Not yet, honey. I have to finish this.” His voice shattered a little at the end, leaving his throat raw and aching. 

“How long?” The heavy thwump of a helicopter’s blades began to reverberate against the women’s chests; Brody, staggering under his load of gear, appeared on the path to their left. 

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Felicity...are you okay?” He bit his lip to keep from sobbing. 

“I’m fine. We’re fine,” she corrected with an emphasis on the “we”, sucking a breath in and holding it. 

“You’re...what?” 

The helicopter was close now, close enough for Lyla to want them to stand and move on. Suddenly John was there too, reaching for her, hoisting her like she was nothing more than a bag of marshmallows. 

A bag of pregnant marshmallows. 

A bubble of laughter spilled out of Felicity in a squawk; she yelled, “You heard me! I love you, Oliver Queen,” as Dig strode across the grass, carrying her toward the lights and the lashing wind and freedom.


	17. Epilogue

February 2019

The vision in that one eye had never come back, but he hardly noticed now. The growl appeared to be permanent too; he’d never be the voice of an audio book, but he didn’t care about that. 

And it had definitely increased his street cred. 

“Well, you got your city back, Mr Queen.”

Oliver sat as still as a statue across the desk from her. One of Samanda Watson’s eyebrows rose and her lips did that thing that told him the giant “but” was coming. 

“Ricardo Diaz could only be identified by his dental records. A little extra, don’t you think?”

Ah yes, the “was that really necessary” eyebrow. He was getting good at reading her. 

The two continued to stare, one in increasing annoyance, the other almost meditative. 

Deep water, Mr Queen. 

Watson blinked first, flipping a dismissive hand toward the door and glancing away. 

“Get out, Mr Queen. You are free to go.”

His exit from her life was so smooth, he hardly disturbed the air as he passed. 

June 2019

The house was almost empty; the big stuff—save for the bed, which Felicity refused to be without even for one night—was in the truck. Just a few boxes left to fill, the ones meant to carry those inevitable last items that always remain at the end of a pack up; the random rubber bands and paper clips found here and there—useless in a house currently without paper, but perfectly good and too handy to just throw away—the odd pan lid that had fallen to the back of the cupboard and might or might not belong to the pan that got scorched and thrown out a couple of months before.

The shoebox, almost forgotten in the back of the closet. 

“Is this something we need? It seems to be full of, just, stuff.”

Felicity made an ‘ooh’ of delight and grabby hands from her criss-cross-applesauce spot on the living room floor. Her legs were slowly going to sleep, but she had recently discovered that the boppy pillow she’d been so skeptical of at the shower worked great as belly support in these later months. 

“Sit,” she ordered, “both of you.”

William sighed as he handed her the box; breaks from moving usually meant phone time, not “endure your parents” time, but whatever. Oliver was just walking in from the kitchen where he’d been re-installing the ugly cafe curtains Felicity had torn down the day Dig moved them in, then thrown in the back of the hall closet in a fit of rage at her circumstances and promptly forgotten about. He collapsed onto his side on the floor behind her, butting up against his wife’s back so she had a spot to lean against and propping his head with his hand. 

“Don’t flex,” she scolded mildly. “Squishy abs are more comfy.” She relaxed into him, sighed, and lifted the box lid. 

William’s first quarter report card was on top, followed by the playbill from the London show (Oliver was still miffed everyone but him had now seen Hamilton), then a scattering of admission tickets to things like the London Eye and the Tower, and a single red pen Felicity waggled briefly in the air and dropped back inside with a smug look. 

“Ah, here we go.” She pulled the postcards together, sorted them chronologically, and twisted around slightly to present them to her husband. He released the hand behind his head in order to look through the photo sides, but handed them back soon after with a “read them to me” request in order to return to supporting his neck. 

Felicity wriggled against him and flipped the first one over. 

“Dear Oliver,  
Remind me to never sit up talking all night on an international flight. We’re all paying for it today.” Behind her Oliver snorted, and William rolled his eyes, making her laugh.   
“London is amazing,” she hurried on. “I wish we could see it together.” A small pause. “I wish we could do ANYTHING together—wow, I thought these were going to be more upbeat,” she editorialized in a mumble. 

She tried the next one. “Duncan says the flag on top of Buckingham Palace tells you if the Queen is in residence. All I know is that my Queen is missing.” Felicity dropped that one in the box immediately with a “God, these are all depressing”.

Oliver rocked into her gently. “I think it’s sweet. Read the rest of it.”

“Nope! Too sappy. Will agrees with me, don’t you?”

Their son nodded emphatically, making Oliver chuckle just as his phone chimed; he rolled to his back in order to free a hand to extract it from his pocket while letting the other reach around to bluntly scratch his wife’s belly and make her sigh with contentment.

“It’s Dig,” he said. “He’s asking how the move’s going without him, and says Lyla wants to know if you’ve heard from Rose lately.” There was another chime in the middle of his sentence, so he read on. “She also wants to know if ‘Rose’ is on your short list for girl names, because otherwise she wants it.”

Felicity’s hand joined her husband’s on her belly and their fingers entwined. “Aww. We were thinking middle name anyway, right? So I don’t see why not.” She shrugged lightly and checked over her shoulder for Oliver’s opinion. 

“Seems only right, since they were cooking at the same time,” he teased, before extracting his hand in order to type a faster reply. 

The US Army helicopter had flown away that night leaving Rose with an envelope full of cash and Felicity’s email address scribbled on a full sheet of paper—John and Lyla still laughed about how Felicity had refused to let them take off until someone in the chopper crew found her a pen and something to write on. 

Inspired by the two women she had so recently met—the one she had saved and the one who had saved her—Rose managed to get herself to a women’s shelter and was now creating a new life for herself by finishing her education. She had been in contact with her parents, and hoped—after schooling and therapy—to someday move to be near them. 

Not long after that fateful night Rose sent Felicity a link to an article from her local Ukrainian paper that told of Maximilian Kovar’s untimely death in his own home. One eyewitness claimed he’d been skinned alive, although no one believed it.

——————————————————————

At five o’clock William left for one last hang out with some friends; his ARGUS tail had been reassigned, the danger from Diaz in the past. Not long after Duncan stopped by with dinner, a traditional Sunday roast complete with place settings and Yorkshire puddings so golden and fluffy Oliver frowned for five minutes. They ate their feast on the patio set out back to the suburban sounds of lawn mowers and dogs barking at nothing. 

They chatted about Smoak Tech—how Curtis had fallen in love and agreed to stay on in Central City to oversee Manufacturing and Development so Felicity could relocate to the coast and run the business from there. 

“So, Mr Queen,” Duncan eyed his best friend’s husband over his wine glass, “what are your plans once you’re settled back in Star City?”

Oliver's gaze flicked down and away and one of his rare toothy smiles flashed across his face. He looked almost bashful. “Stay-at-Home-Dad sounds pretty good at the moment,” he replied softly.

Felicity reached out and their fingers caught in mid-air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Made it under the wire! I haven’t been this excited about an Arrow premiere since Season Four; looking forward to interacting with everyone over on Tumblr—I’m @it-was-a-red-heeler over there, btw. 
> 
> Thanks for all the love and encouragement throughout this fic! It was hard, sometimes, being so dark, but ultimately fun. Much love to all.


End file.
